
Class _ 




HENRY PIUDSQN.' 



REPRESENTATIVE 



Men of New York 



A RECORD OE THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS 



'/I lid iheir disiiitdion has lent lustre to the State."— \\i\'WC,. 



VOLUME I. 

Jay Henry Mowbray, A.M., Ph.D. 



PUBLISHED BY 

"HE NEW YORK PRESS 

NEW YORK CITY 
IB98 



940(1 



Copyright, 1898, 

BY 

James S. McCartney 
All ni:kts reserved 







2nc ^ 'Kjr \ , 

1398. 






BUSTARD CO. 



INDEX TO VOLUME I 



Editorial Introduction .......... 5 

Acknowledgements ........... 8 

The Story of the St.\ti. — Heiork 111 1; Revolution .... 9 

Ali.ing, Asa A. ............ 30 

Ai'PLETON, Daniel ¥. 23 

Austen, Peter T. . . . . 36 

Austin, George C. .......... . 39 

Backus, Henry Clinton 42 

IJell, Clark ............ 47 

Bishop, Joseph N. ........... 50 

Black, Frank S 53 

Bliss, Cornelius N 58 

Brookfield, William 61 

Choate, Joseph H .64 

Choker, Richard 67 

Depew, Chauncey M 70 

Dodge, Grenvili.e M 73 

Dutcher, Silas 15. 76 

Evarts, William iM. 79 

Fitch, Ashbel P. 82 

Fitch, Theodore ........... 85 

Gardenhire, Samuel M 88 

GiBBS, Frederick S. 91 

Haupt, Herman 94 

Hill, David 1). 99 

Hoe, Robert . . . . . .102 

Keenan, Patrick 105 

Keene, James R 108 

Ketchum, Alex. P 11 1 

Lauterbach, Edward 114 

Mayes, L. D 117 

Miller, Isaac N. 120 

Mills, D. O 123 

Mitchell, John M. . . .126 

Morton, Levi P 129 

3 



4 INDEX TO VOLUME I. 

Moss, Frank j-2 

Murphy, William D. \ j-e 



138 



Olcott, W. M. K. 

Page, R. C. M. . . . 

Parsons, John E. . . . ^ .. 

•' 144 

Platt, Thomas C , .„ 

147 

Platzek, M. Warlev j-^ 

Root, Elihu j- 

Scott, Henry W. ^ ^ 

Smith, John Sabine j 

Talcott, Edward B jg^ 

Thompson, Geo. K. ^^ 

Tracy, Benjamin F go 

Truax, Chauncey S. j^ 

Vandivert, S. W. . . 

J 74 

Van Wyck, Robert A. . . . ,„^ 

177 

White, S. V. . . . 

' ■••••••■.. 180 

Whitney, William C . . 185 



Representative Men of New York. 



EunORIAL INTRODUCIION. 




,J^ JjEi_<ROM the lieights whence Niagara pours her thunder- 
*"° ■" ' ing flood to where the Hudson weds the sea is 

spread out a land as fair as e'er inspired poet's 
dream. Here are reared the lofty peaks of the 
everlasting Adirondacks ; there lies the fertile 
valley of the Mohawk; on the one hand roll the crested billows 
of the broad Atlantic, while on the other ripple the unsalted 
seas. Nature, truly, has bestowed her bounties with a lavish hand, 
yet forests and fields, mountains and plains, do not constitute a 
Commonwealth — they but deck the stage on which is enacted 
the great drama of human existence. Scenery and soil hold but 
small place on the pages of the world's history, and not even 
Nature's most beneficent smiles could alone have given to New 
York her well bestowed title of the Empire State ; whatever of 
pre-eminence she can proudly boast is owed to the efforts of the 
indomitable men who have made their homes within her borders 
and by their intuitive intelligence and enthusiastic enterprise have 
reared to Progress a temple at whose shrine the whole world 
worships. 

The recorder of events recalls the acts the ages have seen 
in the world's wide theatre ; the wars and conquests, the rise 
and fall of dynasties, the shifting bounds of States and Nations. 
These are the pages of the past, records that deal with deeds ; 
but the narrative of the present must tell of men, for biography 
is the soul of history, and he who would write the tale of to-day 
must guide the pen of the one who seeks to chronicle the careers 
of those the sum of whose endeavors, when woven together with 



6 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

the dispassionate judgment of the historian of the future, will 
constitute the story of the State. 

Already on the shining shaft that history reared are graven 
the deeds of those who possessed the God-given courage to em- 
bark their fragile fleets and dare the dangers of the unknown 
waste of Western waters ; of the hardy pioneers who penetrated 
the depths of New York's tangled forests and faced the fangs 
of savage beasts and the darts of hostile redmen ; of the heroes 
who later plucked the priceless pearl of freedom from the crown 
of the oppressor and placed the brightest shining star in the 
azure folds of Old Glory ; who swept the minions of foreign 
despots from many a bloody field, who crushed the hideous ser- 
pent of disunion — their memory will endure when earthly monu- 
ments crumble to the dust. Beside these the future will write 
the names of their worthy sons who to-day are battling under 
an equatorial sun that despotism and tyranny shall no more rear 
their heads on the continent their forefathers, by their blood, 
have consecrated to freedom. 

But it is not by wars and armed battalions that a nation's 
might is measured. Mines and mills, fields and factories, after all, 
are the only basis of a prosperity that will long endure, for the 
arts and the sciences cannot truly thrive in soil fresh watered by 
the blood of its possessors. As deeply carved on the arch of 
fame, then, as are the names of her immortal warriors are graven 
the achievements of those to whom it is owing that on the broad 
bosom of our great harbor float, to-day, the commercial navies of 
the world, and of those others who, in the fruitful fields of civil 
life, have done so much to make imperishable the name and fame 
of the Empire Commonwealth. 

Since the theme of these volumes is to be the men who, 
whether on the glorious field of battle or in uneventful but not 
less important walks have brought grand old New York to its 
present proud pre-eminence in the sisterhood of States, the back- 
ground may well be a brief consideration of the aims and accom- 
plishments of their predecessors; a text, seemingly, particularly 
appropriate to the prefatory portion of a work whose purpose it 



EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION. 7 

will be to hand clown to the generations into whose care the 
greatness of the State will one day be committed the story of 
the ambitions and achievements of those of its citizens whose 
energetic efforts have made memorable these closing days of the 
Nineteenth Century. Appropriate not only because the past offers 
examples by which the present may be justly judged, nor yet by 
virtue of the influence that shining deeds wrought in bygone days 
may exert upon our present endeavors, but because Representa- 
tive Men of New York, if not a continuation of the narrative 
of the progressive prosperity of the State, and if it does not 
supply to the future historian material for important contributions 
to the archives of the Commonwealth, fails in the fulfillment of 
its high purpose. 




ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 



Thk Editor wishes to express his appreciation of the val- 
uable assistance and many courtesies that have been tendered 
him not only by his associates on the staff of the Press, but by 
Prof. Welland Hendrick, George Probst, Charles B. Hall, George 
Prince, J. G. Gessford, and a number of others who have con- 
tributed much to the success of the work. 



THE STORY OF THE STATE. 



Before the Revolution. 




l^^liHE IROQUOIS, the conquering aborigines of 
America, were making their home within llie 
boundaries of what is now tlie State of New 
York, when, on the third day of September, 
1609, Henry Hudson, an Englisliman in the 
service of Amsterdam merchants, guided his little ship, the 
" Half Moon," into a broad estuary and, in a vain effort 
to discover a western passage to India, sailed up the river 
which has since borne his name. The Iroquois were in 
every respect superior to the other natives and readily perceived 
the many advantages of soil and geographical location which 
the region afforded. They lived in houses, had great fields of 
corn, beans and tobacco, made earthenware, baskets and ropes, 
and the five tribes composing the nation, the Mohawks, Oneidas, 
Onandaguas, Cayugas and Senecas, were joined in a rude 
republic, with their principal habitation in the Mohawk Valley 
and central and western New York, Their neighbors to the 
north were the Algonquins, who had long, but unsuccessfully, 
waged war against them, and had finally succeeded in obtaining 
the aid of French adventurers and traders. Champlain, who has 
been called the father of New F"rance, had been persuaded to 
enter with the Canadian tribes in a campaign against the Iroquois 
and, on a July morning, a few months before Hudson's landing, 
the Indians of New York were first startled by the roar of gun- 
powder. The victory which followed was an easy one for the 
French, but, witiiout knowing it, they had matle lasting enemies 
of the fiercest warriors on the continent, and solidified them 
into an impenetrable bulwark against their later attacks on the 
Dutch and English colonies. Indeed, it may be truly said that 



lO REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

this ill-starred campaign of the French had much to do with 
the after success of New Netherland and of the settlement when 
it had passed under the dominion of the British. 

The " Half Moon " followed the course of the Hudson for 
over a hundred miles, but perceiving the nature of the stream 
from its rapid shallowing, turned back, and after having spent 
about a month in the river and bay, sailed away, never to 
return. Still looking for a Northwest passage, Hudson Bay was 
entered on his next voyage, but a rebellious crew set him and his 
little son adrift in an open boat and they perished. The fame of 
the wonderful harbor which had been discovered soon spread 
among the Dutch, however, and they sent hither ships ladened 
with traders to barter with the savages for the spoils of the 
chase. The first of these traders was Adrien Black, a Hollander 
who came in 1611 and again in 1613, the latter time with Capt. 
Hendrik Christiaensen. They brought with them, in the "Tiger" 
and " Fortune," a number of veterans as settlers, together with a 
cargo of merchandise for trading purposes, and erected a redoubt 
containing four small houses on the site on which is now built 
No. 39 Broadway. About the same time that Manhattan was 
settled, the adventurous traders, seeking to penetrate the heart of 
the fur trade, built a fort on Castle Island, below the present 
site of the City of Albany. These ventures proving successful, 
other settlers were added from time to time to the little colony, 
the merchants who bore the original expense of the enterprise 
organizing themselves into the United New Netherland Com- 
pany, and subsequently procuring from the States-General of 
Holland a charter granting them a monopoly of the trade, which 
was chiefly in furs, between the 40th and 45th parallels, north 
latitude. This organization was more widely known, perhaps, as 
the Dutch West India Company. 

What matters it, then, that the Italian, Vcrrazani, may have 
entered the bay a hundred years in advance of Henry Hudson's 
gallant crew, or that Champlain preceded the Dutch upon the 
soil of interior New York? As the Norse discovery of the 
Western Hemisphere yielded naught to the world, and their prior 



THE STORY OF THE STATE. I I 

advent has not dimmed the kistre of CoUimbus' name, so the 
fame of Hudson is none the less, since it was his discovery that 
brought about the occupation of the territory and its settlement 
by the white man. 

Jamestown was weak and struggling; the "Mayflower's" pas- 
sengers had not yet set foot on Plymouth Ixock; far amid the 
ice and snow of Nova Scotia were the camps of !• rench traders ; 
all between was mountain, plain and forest, uninhabited save by 
ferocious beasts and scarcely less savage men, when, on a fertile 
island, called by the Indians Manhattan, and lying in a slieltered 
bay, the Dutch built their first storehouses and forts. But cabins 
and stockades do not really make a settlement ; they are 
shelters, not habitations, and it was not until fifteen years after 
the discovery by Hudson that thirteen families of persecuted 
French Protestants came to the new world — the first white 
people who made New York their home. A number of these 
families settled on Manhattan Island, while the remainder scattered 
themselves over the surrounding country; a little company of 
them founding, at the same time, the City of Brooklyn. These 
settlers were sent out by the Dutch West India Company, which 
really ruled the colony, although the States-General of Hollaml 
nominally retained supreme authority. Many other families 
followed these French exiles until, by the year 1626, the settle- 
ment had grown to such proportions that the company bestowed 
upon the region the name of New Netherland, with Peter Minuet 
as its first Governor, while the settlement on Manhattan Island 
was given the name of New Amsterdam, Minuet having purchased 
the island from the savages for 60 guilders, or about $24 of our 
present money. Henceforth emigrants came pouring in, en- 
couraged by the company, which furnished cheap transportation, 
gave free grants of land and established universal religious 
toleration. 

During the almost four decades following, the Dutch ruled 
the Province with Minuet, Van Twiller, Kieft and Stuyvesant as 
Governors. All of them did a great deal for themselves and 
their masters, but none of them accomplished much for the 



12 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

people. History records that Governor Van Twiller, in his 
covetousness and his desire to make all possible from his 
position, erected a brewery. With Kieft, who succeeded Van 
Twiller from 163S to 1647, a striking anomaly is presented in 
the statement that he built the first distillery and tavern in the 
colony as well as the first church. The characters of the four 
have been summed up in the statement that Minuet was a self- 
willed and self-seeking adventurer, Van Twiller a drunken and 
indolent fool, Kieft a conceited and tyrannical bankrupt, and 
Stuyvesant a despotic and passionate autocrat. 

During the first twelve years the colony was ruled by 
Minuet and Van Twiller, the former of whom was accused of 
favoring the patroons and was recalled. The patroons were 
settlers who had taken advantage of the company's ruling that 
gave the right to any one who would establish a colony of fifty 
persons to hold a tract of land fronting sixteen miles on the 
water and running back indefinitely, provided, always, that the 
rights of the Indians thereto were purchased. Van Twiller, 
shallow to the extreme, was succeeded by William Kieft, who 
was as hasty and rash as his predecessor had been slow and 
inefificient, and to his other faults dishonesty was added, and 
during the decade that he ruled, the colony was brought to the 
verge of ruin. Previous to his administration the settlers had 
sought to make friends of the red men, but the greater part of 
Kieft's violent energy was spent in warfare against the natives. 
The fur trade was the basis of the colony's prosperity, and for 
the success of this traffic, peace with the Indians was necessary. 
The Governor's actions, however, incited them to a bloody battle 
upon the outlying farms and villages, and made him almost as 
many enemies among the colonists as in the ranks of the 
aborigines themselves. Finally, after a thousand natives had been 
slain and the very life of the settlement endangered, peace was 
made through the medium of the still friendly Iroquois and the 
colony began a new era of prosperity. 

When Minuet came to be Governor, New Netherland had a 
population of but two hundred people ; twenty years later, at the 



THE STORY OF THE STATE. 1 3 

close of Kieft's administration, this number had been increased 
ten-fold, living on the lower end of Manhattan Island, at 
Pavonia, a settlement on what is now the New Jersey side of 
the river, Brooklyn, Fort Orange and Fort Good Hope, while 
farms spread over parts of the present counties of Albany, 
Rensselaer, Westchester, Richmond, Kings and Queens. In tlie 
latter days of the Dutch rule it is estimated tliat New Nether- 
land had eight thousand inhabitants, of which the future 
metropolis of the nation contained one-fourth. Although the 
Dutch West India Company ruled the Province, these eight 
thousand people were by no means all from Holland ; in that 
early day as now, no other American settlement had so varied 
a class of inhabitants as had New York, which seems always to 
have been a "city of the world," and even then the persecuted 
of England, France, Germany, Bohemia and, indeed, of all the 
countries of Europe, and be it sadly said, slaves from Africa, 
made up its population. 

The most energetic portion of the community came from 
New England ; some induced by the superior soil, others fleeing 
from the persecution of the zealous Puritans. Among these were 
many Quakers, and brave and hardy men so necessary to tlu; 
making of a prosperous State, but such citizens as these would 
not submit to misrule. Many bitter complaints were sent to 
Holland, and finally resulted in the recall of Kieft and the 
appointment of Peter Stuyvesant, the last and perlia[)s tiie best 
of the Dutch Governors. 

While it was the policy of the Dutch to buy from the vv.d 
men the land which the settlers sought to occupy, during the 
latter years of the first epoch in New York's history many 
disputes with the natives arose, and willi French to the north of 
them, Indians in the interior, English to the east and Swedes to 
the south, New Netherland was in an almost constant state of 
strife, finally culminating in the territory's passing under tlie 
control of the British Crown. 

England, during the years of the colony's progress, was 
spreading her dominions to the north and south, ami the Dutcli, 



14 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

knowing what a very acquisitive country it was, and what 
little excuse the New Englanders, then becoming quite num- 
erous in Massachusetts, would require to pay them a hostile 
visit, neglected nothing in the way of fortified readiness for such 
an emergency. In fact, England, at a period far anterior to this, 
had laid claim to Manhattan Island, alleging that its purchase for 
five pounds sterling was a swindle and a hollow mockery, and if 
she did not send an armed force to protect the aborigines from 
the greed of the Dutch, it was because she was too much occu- 
pied in other quarters. Peter Stuyvesant, the last Governor of 
New Netherland, had become well acquainted with the English 
in the West Indies and mistrusted them. He therefore fortified 
New Amsterdam as well as his means permitted and, not 
satisfied with that, concluded it would be good policy to clear his 
outskirts of neutrals or doubtful friends. 

In 1638 the Swedes had planted a colony on the Delaware 
River and re-inforced it from time to time until, in 1655, 
Governor Stuyvesant proclaimed that his masters, the Dutch 
West India Company, had a prior right to the territory and 
assembled a naval and military force of about a thousand men 
and, attacking the Swedish force, put an end to any dreams that 
might have been entertained by Queen Christiana as regarded a 
New Sweden in North America. 

In the absence of the expedition against the Swedes, 
however, a thousand Indians attacked the town, killed one 
hundred of its defenders, captured one hundred and fifty others 
and did a good deal of pillaging, burning and murdering. The 
expenditure of blood and money involved in the expedition 
against the Swedes and in repelling the Indians so weakened the 
colony that it invited an attack from the English, who had never 
yielded up the title they claimed to the Hudson River territory 
by virtue of the early discovery of the region by Cabot, in 1497, 
and who now and then by way of reminder, had entered formal 
protests against its continued occupancy by the Dutch. 

In 1664, having previously obtained a grant of land from 
his brother, Charles II, the Duke of York sent out a Heet, 



THE STORY OF THE STATK. 15 

which seized it, subject to negotiations between the British and 
the Dutch governments. The brave old Governor Stuyvcsant, 
answering the summons to surrender, said that he would rather 
be carried out dead, and prepared to give battle ; but his people, 
dissatisfied and persecuted by the greed of the West India Com- 
pany, chafing under the high taxes, and seeing, moreover, the 
futility of resistance to so imposing a force, gave up the forts, 
and the Dutch garrison marched out with all the honors of war. 
The old Director-General retired to his farm, on what is the 
present Bowery, where he lived in cjuiet dignity for eighteen 
years, and died universally respected. His body now lies in a 
vault in St. Mark's Church, in New York City. 

Although the Colony, during this epoch, produced few great 
men, the general character of the people was of the highest 
order; they were thrifty and industrious, and, inider llie guidance 
of their first minister, Bogardus, and the pioneer schoolmaster, 
Roelandscn, did much that was substantial in the growth of the 
State, although, amid the changes and raj)id jMogress of events, 
we are fain to lose sight of the origin of many customs which 
date from the earliest history of the Colony. To the Dutch, 
however, we certainly owe the high principles of ct^nmercial 
integrity and far-sighted business policy which are the foundation 
of our greatness, and which have done so much in making the 
Metropolis the foremost city of the Western World. 

U.N'DER KRITLSH RULK. 

A company of English Puritans, forced to lice, their native 
land because of their religion, went to Holland soon after Hud- 
son's discovery of New York, and sought leave from the Dutch 
authorities to settle in the new country. Tiie Companx', how- 
ever, feared that through them the colony might eventually be 
brought under British rule, and refused the desired permission. 
Sailing for English soil, the exiles then lantled at I'lymouth 
Rock in 1620. The future showed how good a basis the West 
India Company had for their apprehension, for these men of 
New England, and their sons, by emigrating from Massachusetts 



1 6 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

to New Netherland, and there instilling the leaven of dissatisfac- 
tion into the breasts of the Dutch, helped to accomplish the 
almost bloodless capture of the Province by the British Crown, 
and realized the fears which had, years before, prompted the 
authorities to refuse them leave to settle within the boundaries 
of the Colony. 

Under its new owners the Province was named New York, 
in honor of the Duke, as was also the settlement on Manhattan 
Island. The new English Governor was Colonel Nichols, who 
appointed Thomas Willet first Mayor of New York City, which 
was then incorporated after the fashion of English towns. The 
grant of the Duke had been the land between the Connecticut 
and the Delaware and a quasi title to all the land between 
Cape Cod and Cape May. Connecticut, however, had no inten- 
tion of giving up her settlements on eastern Long Island or 
those on the west bank of the Connecticut River ; but, rather 
than quarrel with Nichols, they agreed to leave the disputed 
boundary to a Commission, which finally awarded to New York 
all of Long Island, and gave to Connecticut about its present 
limits on the mainland. 

Unknown to Nichols, the Duke had in the meantime given 
to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret the land between the 
Hudson and the Delaware, to which caprice the State of New 
Jersey owes its existence. William Penn, later, bought extensive 
tracts of land, and New York was thus reduced to almost its 
present boundaries, with the addition of the territory which now 
comprises the States of Vermont and New Hampshire. What 
was left of the Duke's grant was quite enough, however, to 
worry Nichols, and as the work was hard, the cares many, and 
the pay small, he soon obtained his recall, being succeeded by 
Lord Lovelace, who, though popular in the English Court, soon 
incurred the dislike of the people of the now thriving settlement. 
Lovelace, whatever may have been his failings, — and they were 
manifold, — was certainly progressive, and soon after his advent 
purchased Staten Island from the Indians, and established a 
monthly mail route between New York and Boston. He also 



THE STORY OF THE STATE. 17 

founded the Merchants' Exchange, and, althoiigli arl)ilrary in his 
rule, effected many substantial improvements. 

During his management of the colonics a fierce war broke 
out between England and the Netherlands, and, during the Gov- 
ernor's absence in Connecticut, a Dutch ileet, passing through 
the Narrows, besieged the city. Captain Manning, who was in 
charge of the post, called on the citizens for aid ; but, with a 
return of that fickleness they had displayed nine years before, 
they spiked all the cannon within their reach, and gathered mili- 
tia, to the number of four hundred, to assist the invaders. 
After a short action the fort was compelled to surrender, and 
New York was thus temporarily returned to the rule of the 
Dutch, with the pompous Captain Colve in the executive chair. 

He had ruled the colony for some months, and had planned 
an elaborate form of government for the settlement, when news 
arrived from Holland that the nation had made a treaty of peace 
and finally ceded New York to the English, who thus secured an 
uninterrupted and undisputed coast line from Maine to Georgia, 
and made possible our great republic. 

It was in November, 1674, that New York linally re-passed 
to the English, to remain for a century a British province. 
Once more in his hands, the Duke of York sought to tighten 
his grasp on the Colony, and, to remove all doubt as to his 
rights to the territory, secured a new grant from the King. New 
Jersey he again gave to Carteret, and sent Major Edmund An- 
dros to New York as Governor. For ten years Andros gave 
the settlement an active and businesslike administration, penetrat- 
ing into the far west of the unsettled Mohawk Valley, viewing 
the fertile flats and making friends of the Indians, and, assuming 
that New Jersey was still under his control, even went so far as 
to arrest Governor Carteret. The old boundary contest with 
Connecticut was also renewed, but fruitlessly. 

Governor Dongan, who succeeded Andros, it has been said, 
was the first Governor of New York who had the breadth of 
brain and trueness of heart to make a statesman, and it was at 
his hands that the common man of the Colony first received his 



1 8 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

rights, the executive studiously ignoring the petty quarrels at 
home and with neigiiboring provinces, but fiercely combating the 
encroachments of the great enemies to English rule — the French. 
In 1686 the new Governor granted the Dongan Charter, which 
has ever since been the basis of New York City's municipal 
rights. This document conferred upon the municipality jurisdic- 
tion over the entire Island of Manhattan, to low-water mark of 
the bays and rivers around it, but vested, or rather retained, in 
the hands of the Governor the appointment of many officers 
who are now elected by the people. 

But Governor Dongan was too upright a man to make a fit 
tool for the Duke of York, who had now become King, with the 
title of James II, and one Nicholson was sent to New York to 
be Lieutenant-Governor under Andros, who had been made Gov- 
ernor over the combined northern colonies, with the exception of 
Pennsylvania. 

The colony was on the verge of a civil war between the 
adherents of rival factions, when news came that the English 
people, after three years of rule by King James II, had wel- 
comed William of Orange into Britain and forced James into 
exile. In the meantime the people of Massachusetts had impris- 
oned Andros, and the colonists were undecided whether or not to 
obey the weak-willed Nicholson, since he was an officer of the 
deposed monarch. In this crisis, Jacob Leisler, a man of the 
people, was persuaded to lead in an effort to take the fort from 
the control of the adherents of Nicholson, who had proven him- 
self far too vacillating to cope with the strained situation, and 
who, on the threat of trouble, had sailed for England. The 
Governor having fled, Leisler entered the stronghold, styling him- 
self Lieutenant-Governor. The new Executive had the interests 
of the colony thoroughly at heart, and proved himself earnest 
and active in carrying out the duties of the position. An army 
was sent against the French, who were again leaving a trail of 
desolation through the Mohawk Valley, and he entered into a 
joint expedition with other New England colonies for an attack 
on Canada by sea. A fortress at New York was made, and at 



THE STORY OF THE STATE. 19 

the foot of what is now Broadway six guns were planted, mark- 
ing the place, and giving the name to the modern park, the 
Battery. Broad and liberal in his views, seeing far beyond his 
times, he early perceived the need of colonial brotherhood, and 
was the first man to propose a convention of American prov- 
inces. Professor Hendrick, in his history of the Empire State, 
speaks of him as a man a century ahead of the people. 

After two years of Leisler's capable rule, Sloughter, the new 
Governor appointed by King William, arrived in New York, and 
assumed the duties of his position without resistance. Captain 
Richard Ingoldsbj-, in charge of Sloughter's troops, however, had 
reached New York long before the new Governor, and had de- 
manded the fort. This was refused, since he had no authority 
to govern the Colony. Ingoldsby laid siege, but Leisler de- 
fended his post even at the cost of bloodshed, all the time 
maintaining, however, that he was ready to give up his position 
when the new Governor should appear and present his credentials. 

No sooner had Sloughter arrived, and taken charge without 
resistance, than the enemies of Leisler caused his arrest, and, in 
their bitter hatred, got the Governor's signature to a death war- 
rant after the Executive had been plied with winr. at a supper. 
Two days later, while Sloughter was still lying in a drunken 
stupor, Leisler was executed. Before the waning century was 
done, however, his body was raised, and lay in state, the ruling 
Governor of the Province did honor to his memory, and the 
British Parliament relieved his family, antl exonerated his able 
administration. Sloughter's drunken habits brought about his 
death a few montlis after the hanging of Leisler, and he was 
succeeded by Iienjaniin Fletcher, a poor Governor but a good 
soldier — one who movetl his troops so rapidly up the Hudson, to 
oppose the French, that the Indians named him Gn^at Swift 
Arrow. In his efforts to establish the Church of luigland in 
the colony, he founded Trinity Church, still one of the land- 
marks of lower New York. 

During the seven years following 1690 the colony was in 
almost constant war with the Preiich and their Iiulian allies, the 



20 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

active control of the English and Colonial troops being entrusted 
to Peter Schuyler. The outrages of pirates, among them the 
famous Captain Kidd, having become so bold, and the Governor 
being suspected of sympathy and complicity with them, he was 
recalled by the English government, and his place taken by 
the Earl of Bellomont who, while a member of Parliament, had 
defended Leisler and now promptly identified himself with the 
Leislerian party and speedily inaugurated a thoroughly demo- 
cratic administration. Liberty seemed to be making rapid pro- 
gress in the colonies when Bellomont died and was succeeded by 
Lord Cornbury, a thorough aristocrat, whose rule was so tyranni- 
cal that it soon won the intense hatred of the people and he is 
to-day remembered as the first of the grasping Governors of 
New York who eventually drove the peace-loving community to 
join in a war of revolt against the mother country. One 
thing, however, Cornbury 's greed really succeeded in acccomplish- 
ing, and that was that it solidified the two warring political 
factions in undying opposition to him, and during his administra- 
tion the people thereby advanced more rapidly towards freedom 
than even under the rule of Bellomont. 

The administration of Cornbury, too, is a chapter of unjust 
deeds, and when he was recalled from office by his cousin, the 
Queen, he was thrown into prison for debt and remained 
incarcerated until released by a timely legacy. This was about 
the beginning of Queen Anne's War, and after a short time, in 
which several others tried their hands at the helm, Robert Hunter 
became Governor of the colony. He was by far the ablest of 
the English Governors and his grasp of the situation led him to 
write home the startling prophecy: "The colonies are infants at 
their mother's breasts, but such as will wean themselves when 
they come of age." How truly he recognized the certainty of 
ultimate rebellion, the history of the nation proves. 

The opening of the new century found the colony with 
twenty thousand inhabitants, and by 1725 the number had been 
doubled; at the half century New York contained eighty thous- 
and people, and in 1775, at the close of the English rule, the 



THE STORY OF THE STATE. 21 

population had again doubled and settlers had filled the Hudson 
Valley, spreading over Orange and Ulster counties, and further 
north were looking longingly to the land where the Mohawk 
would easily carry them. In tliis valley Schenectady, for fear of 
the French and their Indian allies, was long the last town, but 
nothing could long restrain the settlers' desire to till this rich 
low-lying land, and a fort was built at the mouth of Schoharie 
Creek and named after Governor Hunter. The latter, however, 
soon became discontented with the colony's outlook and, obtain- 
ing his recall, was succeeded by William Burnet, whose name 
may be added to the short list of liberal-minded and public- 
spirited foreign Governors in the colony. He made many efforts 
to convince the King and colonists that it would be to their 
mutual advantage to preoccupy the banks of the Ohio and Mis- 
sissippi with a line of English forts. The King was thousands 
of miles away, however, and did not realize the? situation, \vhile 
the colonists were so fearful of taxation that they frowned upon 
the project. Burnet, however, left no stone unturned to defeat 
the schemes of France. Among his most important acts was the 
calling of a Council of Colonial Governors to meet at Albany, 
which was the first of many conferences held at that place witii 
the Six Nations, the five tribes of the Irocjuois having been 
joined by the Tuscaroras, of Virginia, the confederation hence- 
forth bearing the title of the Six Nations. But Burn{!t, too, 
finally incurred the dislike of a number of the prominent citizens, 
and a combination of influences brought about his removal to 
Massachusetts. 

Burnet's successor having died within a few months. Rip 
Van Dam, the oldest member of the Council, acted as Governor 
until the arrival, in 1732, of Colonel William Cosby, an over- 
bearing tyrant who did much to stay the upward course of the 
colony. Cosby died in 1736 and George Clarke?, a favorite {>f 
the aristocracy, became acting Governor, and by representing to 
the powers beyond the Atlantic that the place was ill-paid and 
beset with troubles, he kept charge of the Government for seven 
years. It was during his term that the disgusting negro panic, 



22 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

which is almost a parallel of the witchcraft delusion of Salem, 
occurred. 

The city now held ten thousand people, at least a fifth of 
whom were negro slaves, and rumors of an uprising filled the 
air. Thirty years before, the negroes were charged with conspir- 
ing to burn the city, and on very meagre evidence nineteen of 
them were hanged. Since then the people had lived in fear of 
an uprising, and under the law, when three negroes were found 
together they might be given forty lashes on the bare back. 
The winter of 1741 had been one of the most severely cold the 
colony had ever experienced, and there was much suffering in 
consequence. A few small fires occurred about this time, prob- 
ably of incendiary origin and for the sake of plunder, but in this 
the cowardly of the citizens saw a negro plot to burn the city 
and murder the whites. The people were seized with a panic 
and many (led the city. One ignorant girl, arrested on suspicion 
that she knew the secret of the plot, in her fright invented wild 
tales which were eagerly believed ; others, to save themselves, 
added fresh details to her story, seeking this as the wisest way 
to escape imprisonment. Informers became plentiful and the 
sheriff and hangmen were busy. Wilder and more maddened the 
people grew, and by the time the fury had finally spent itself, 
nearly two hundred people, mostly negroes, had been imprisoned, 
many of the blacks hanged, more transported to the West In- 
dies, while fourteen suffered the barbarous death by burning. 
Four whites also were hanged, among them a Catholic priest. 

Soon after this Lieutenant-Governor Clarke closed his ad- 
ministration and gave way to Cosby's successor. Admiral George 
Clinton. About this time came the struggle known as King 
George's War, filled with raids by the Canadians over the Cham- 
plain route, and with great expeditions planned and equipped by 
the English, but never carried through. During this strife the 
French came within forty miles of Albany, burned Saratoga, 
murdered many and carried terror to the frontier. 

Nominal peace came in 1748, but France used it in fortify- 
inor itself alon<jf the frontier and encroachingf on the boundaries 



THE STORY OF THE STATE. 23 

of the State. The dispute smouldered until 1755, when war 
opened in earnest and continued for five years with almost un- 
broken successes for the I'Vench until 1759, when after a purely 
American force had won some victories, Sir William Johnson 
captured Niatjara and the French deserted Ticonderoci;a and 
Crown Point to concentrate about Quebec, where, on the Plains 
of Abraham, the brave Wolfe conquered the no less brave Mont- 
calm, both died on the field of battle and New York and her 
sister colony at last had needed rest. There was no cpiestion 
now as to the northern boundary of New York, but the war left 
the colony with a debt of a million and a half of dollars, a heavy 
burden for those days on a sparsely-settled province. This 
struggle, however, brought to notice and opened up to settle- 
ment many square miles of the richest agricultural lands in the 
State, hitherto uncultivated for fear of raids by the P'rench and 
the Indians. 

By the time the final war with P>ance was over, and peace 
came to the distracted province. New York was no longer a col- 
ony of scattered settlements, but was fast taking on the form of 
a State, its peopled territory at that time being the valley of the 
Mohawk at the one e.xtreme and Long Island at the other, willi 
the Hudson Valley as a connecting bar. Long Island was 
divided into counties, and was settled, in the main, by emigrants 
from the New England provinces who had, in a gr<_'at degree, 
preserved their Puritan ideas and manners; in Queens County 
the Dutch element was predominant, for lower New York was 
not so crowded, nor was the ferry passage safe or rapid enough 
to greatly assist in the growth of the settlement of Brooklyn, 
then but a small and unimportant village. The Dutch settlers 
largely devoted their time to market-gardening, principally in 
Kings County, while what is now Richmond County had but a 
few settlers. Manhattan, with Bedloe's, Governor's and Blackwell's 
islands, were comprised in the boundaries of the City of New 
York, but that town itself was then only about one mile long 
and a half mile broad, its crooked streets extending as far north 
as the site of the present City Ilall. The number of people 



24 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

then in New York is estimated as somewhere between twenty 
and twenty-five thousand, comprising only one-seventh or one- 
eighth of the total population of the State, though in later years 
the population of the city has been to that of the State as one 
to four or five. 

The Dutch ministers still preached in their native language, 
but to ever diminishing congregations ; for the people, even 
those born to the Flemish tongue, spoke the language of the 
ruling classes fluently and were beginning to show a marked 
preference for the English preachers. Besides its eighteen 
churches, New York had few public houses. There was an 
almshouse, a City Hall, two stories high, an exchange and a 
hospital, the small beginning of the vast array of public and 
charitable institutions which now abound in the great city. 
Kings, now Columbia College, was the only other notable build- 
ing within the limits of the future metropolis. This institution 
was founded to teach a sentiment of submission to England, but 
how it failed of its purpose is shown by the fact that among its 
first pupils were such boys as Gouverneur Morris and Alexander 
Hamilton, two of the most ardent of the Revolutionary heroes. 

The Harlem of those days was a small Dutch village, while 
just beyond lay Westchester, settled mostly by the descendants 
of the advance guard of Connecticut Yankees. Across the Hud- 
son lay Orange County, which then included Rockland and 
reached to the State line. Northward, Ulster County was an 
immense tract joining Albany County on the north and running 
back to the Delaware River and the Indian country. Along the 
course of the magnificent Hudson were a number of typical 
settlements of Dutch, Irish, French, English and Scotch, the 
principal village north of Manhattan being Kingston, with less 
than a thousand people. 

On the other side of the river Dutchess County began at 
Westchester, included the present Putnam County and reached 
to what is now the line of Columbia County. Poughkeepsie 
and Fishkill were its two principal villages, although then they 




^liiaiiSAIVjJJilK IHAMUj^I'Di^fo 




^< 



THE STORY OF THE STATE. 25 

State of New York was known as Albany County, the present 
State capital, with its three hundred and fifty brick houses, being 
the most characteristically Dutch in the colony, although to the 
west Schenectady, too, clung closely to the manners and customs 
of the original settlers. 

THE PRE-REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 

Towards the middle of the Eighteenth Century the people 
began to regard the Governors with an intense and growing ani- 
mosity, for which reason the position was little sought after, and 
changes were frequent. While Virginia had twenty Governors 
in the century before the Revolution, Massachusetts twenty-one, 
and Pennsylvania twenty-five, New York underwent thirty-three 
changes in executive authority, and from the administration of 
Admiral Clinton to Tryon, the last English Governor, the colony 
for much of the time was in charge of Lieutenant-Governors 
James DeLancey and Cadwallader Colden. Eight Governors 
died in office, one, despondent at the opposition he found after 
only a few days' residence in the colony, committing suicide by 
hanging. 

As the first century of English rule in the Empire State 
was drawing to a close, the people were beginning to consider 
themselves Americans, and the English began to treat the col- 
ony as part of one great Province. Determining to have a fixed 
revenue from their trans-Atlantic possessions, partly to pay the 
war debt, but more largely, perhaps, to pay the salaries of 
the Judges and Governors, and thus render these offices inde- 
pendent of the hostile legislative assemblies which, for many 
years, had been a source of almost constant annoyance to the 
rulers, an internal tax was finally levied by the British Govern- 
ment, taking the form of stamps, which they required should be 
placed on newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, marriage licenses, 
mortgages, and all legal papers. " The spirit of resistance," says 
Bancroft, " was nowhere so strong as in New York," although 
open opposition was not attempted until the colonists, in addi- 
tion to their already almost unbearable burdens, were required to 



26 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

furnish the standing army with quarters, candles, wood, soap, and 
drink. Then the people gathered together in secret societies, and 
planned desperate deeds, parading the principal streets of the 
city, bearing a copy of the hated stamp act fastened to a death's 
head, and inscribed with the words, " The Folly of England and 
the Ruin of America." 

The Sons of Liberty, the leading patriotic society in New 
York, at this critical juncture suggested the formation of Com- 
mittees of Correspondence with the other colonies, for the sep- 
arateness of the various provinces was an almost insuperable 
hindrance to unity of action or joint resistance to oppression. 
The other settlements at once fell in with this idea, and soon 
came to a mutual understanding, whch eventually resulted in the 
calling together of a Colonial Congress, which met in New 
York City. 

The stamp act was to go into effect on the ist of Novem- 
ber ; the Congress met in October, and the representatives of 
New York and the eight other colonies which were represented 
therein adopted a firm declaration of rights, a statement to 
Parliament of the situation, and a petition to George III, who 
had just ascended the English throne. When the morning of 
the 1st of November, 1765, came, the streets of New York were 
deserted, the shops were shut, the bells tolled, flags were at 
half-mast, while throughout the town were posted notices threat- 
ening death to all who distributed or made use of the stamped 
paper. People, however, soon came pouring in from the sur- 
rounding country, menacing crowds gathered in the streets, and 
the frightened stamp collector hastily resigned his place. 

The citizens gathered courage with this success and at- 
tempted to seize the stamps which had been, despite opposition, 
landed under the guns and put into the fort. The following 
night was filled with rioting, and effigies of Acting-Governor 
Colden and of the devil, together with the Governor's carriage 
of state, were burned on Bowling Green. When the next 
morning came Colden wisely proclaimed that he would not al- 
low the stamps to be sold and turned them over to the Mayor 



THE STORY OF THE STATE. 27 

of the city, a man in whom the people had confidence. A 
second stamp distributor resigned in terror and the frenzied ex- 
citement of the people cooled down into quiet determination. 

When Parliament heard of these things and learned that 
similar events had occurred in the other colonies, they recog- 
nized the failure of the tax and repealed the act. The news 
of this action reached the city in the early days of the sum- 
mer, and on the King's birthday, in June, the men gathered 
in the Fields and erected a Liberty Pole, inscribing on it "The 
King, Pitt and Liberty." For to the King they were stead- 
fastly loyal ; while Pitt, long the earnest and eloquent champion 
of American rights, was their ideal. To them, as yet, the 
word liberty had no suggestion of independence. 

But a reaction soon set in, for while the stamp act had indeed 
been repealed, the right to tax the colonies, without permitting 
them to have representation in the English Parliament, was stead- 
fastly maintained, and the almost equally obnoxious quartering 
act was constantly and offensively suggested b)' the insolent 
soldiers who lazily strolled about the streets of the city. Many 
collisions between the troops and the people occurred, the red- 
coats having several times cut down the Liberty Pole which the 
citizens had erected in the Fields. 

In the meantime. Parliament was preparing to place duties 
on tea, glass, paper and paints brought to America, and the 
citizens, in opposition, formed non-importation societies to dis- 
courage the use of these articles. This idea originated in New 
York, already, with the possible exception of Boston, the chief 
commercial city of America, and many letters were sent from 
colony to colony urging joint resistance. The settlers, and 
especially the Dutch of New York, were inveterate tea drinkers ; 
but, patriotically, and in their determination to resist this 
oppressive taxation, they even denied themselves this seeming 
necessity and further evidenced their devotion to the principles 
for which they were struggling by beginning to wear homespun. 
So universal did this become that the colonists soon began to 
look with suspicion upon any one dressed in fine clothing. By 



28 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

such means the importations from England were greatly decreased 
and the London merchants began to beseech Parliament for relief. 

But the English law-makers were growing angry under the 
refusal of the New York Assembly to provide supplies for the 
troops, and finally they voted to suspend the power of the 
Legislature to pass any law until it had voted a supply bill. The 
Assembly promptly declared this action unconstitutional and went 
on with its business. It was thereupon promptly dissolved by 
the Governor, but the new Assembly, elected in 1768, was 
equally determined not to yield, and was likewise soon dissolved. 
Reaction again set in and the next year, when a new legislative 
body was chosen by the people, it showed its sympathy for 
England by voting supplies for the standing army. This called 
forth a storm of indignation from the discontented people and 
led to a mass meeting in the Fields, where the Assembly was 
roundly denounced for their betrayal of their country. 

Shortly after this the soldiers added their part to the 
ill-feeling by again throwing down the Liberty Pole. The usual 
mass meetings followed, knots of citizens and bands of soldiers 
gathered and fights were common. The tumult at last culmi- 
nated, on the 1st day of January, 1770, on Golden Hill, now 
John Street, where some soldiers and citizens chanced to meet. 
A battle of fists, canes and cart-stakes on one side were met 
with bayonets on the other and, although there were no im- 
mediate deaths, blood flowed freely. This fight may be truly 
considered as the initial battle of the great Revolutionary 
struggle, happening, as it did, two months before the Boston 
massacre, for here, in defense of freedom, the first American 
blood was spilled. 

Parliament, in the meantime, had taken away the duties 
on all imports to America with the exception of tea. New 
York, which had proposed the non-importation agreement, alone 
had been true, thereby losing about five-sixths of its foreign 
trade, while New England and Pennsylvania had surrendered but 
one-half of their traffic and some of the colonies had even in- 
creased their importations. 



THE STORY OF THE STATE 29 

The quiet times were followed, in 1773, by the news that 
the tax on tea had been reduced to six cents a pound, and as 
it could then be bouglit cheaper in the colonies than in 
England, Parliament thought that an ingenious plan had at 
last been found for inducing the Americans to enlarge their 
tax burdens through the medium of increased importations ; 
but the colonists saw through the trick, and at New York 
City organized a society of Mohawks to prevent the landing 
of the tea ships, and while a similar party at Boston were 
throwing over a shipload into the harbor, the Mohawks of 
New York in vain waited for the storm-tossed vessels. When 
the first ship finally arrived in port it was not allowed to 
land, although another boat later succeeded in getting a 
number of chests to the dock, whence, in broad day, they 
were dumped into the harbor by the now thoroughly aroused 
people. Thus, in all the colonies the final attempt of England 
to enforce taxation failed. 

Then it was that Parliament again changed its tactics, de- 
termining to reduce one colony thoroughly by force, and after- 
wards subdue the rest. Massachusetts was first singled out, the 
port of Boston was closed, and the Revolutionary struggle was 
indeed begun, although this was but the beginning of the closing 
chapter of a long series of contests for political freedom, having 
their initiation at the presentation of the first petition for a 
charter, and running through the Leislerian uprising against the 
aristocracy, the struggle for the honest use of the revenue, the 
defeat of the stamp act and the non-importation agreement. 

Arthur T. Akhrnethv. 




^^■yyi/I^I^NERGETIC and thoroughly imbued with the pro- 
^ ] — » ^ gressive spirit which animates the business life of 
I § New York, it is not strange that Asa A. Ailing 

^ has been so frequently entrusted with the legal 
affairs of some of New York's large financial in- 
stitutions and private banking houses. Corporations whose inter- 
ests involve large amounts cannot afford to and do not place 
their business in the hands of men who are not thoroughly alive 
to the necessity of force and persistent effort, and no higher trib- 
ute could be paid to a comparatively young attorney than to 
say that he stands high in the ranks of the corporation lawyers 
of the city. 

Asa a. Alling was born in the City of New York, in 1862, 
and comes from thorough American stock, his ancestors having 
been pioneers and founders of one of the oldest families in this 
country. His father was J. Sackett Ailing, a prominent merchant 
and a member of what was known as the Hudson River branch 
of the family. Mr. Alling's descent from Roger Alling (Allen), 
1637, Treasurer of the Colony of New Haven, is direct, and his 
ancestors were among the first English settlers in the Connecti- 
cut Valley. All their connections have been thoroughly patriotic, 
and during the Revolutionary conflict took the American side, 
and furnished many public-spirited citizens in the government and 
affairs of the new Republic. Asa A. Alling's mother was Anna 
E. Bertine, a descendant of Pierre Berton, a French Huguenot, 
whose people settled first in the Carolinas and then upon the 
shores of Long Island Sound, and gave the names to many 
towns and villages in the region, among them New Rochelle, in 



30 



ASA A. ALLIXG. 3 1 

memory of the sunny France that they had left behind in their 
exile. 

Asa A. Ailing acquired his early education in the public 
schools in the city, passin;^ through the successive grades and 
afterwards preparing for a course in Cornell University at the 
Chappaqua Mountain Institute, in Westchester County, New 
York. Upon completion of that preparation he entered Cornell, 
and, after pursuing his studies there, was graduated in 1883, with 
the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy. Then, as now, his elo- 
quence was noteworthy, as is evidenced by his selection as the 
Ivy Orator of his class and his winning the prize for oratory 
offered by General Stewart L. Woodford, late United States 
Minister to Spain, this latter being the highest of Cornell's aca- 
demic honors. Mr. Ailing was one of the founders and the first 
editors of the Cornell Daily Sun, the leading organ of college 
news, and while in this famous institution he became a member 
of the Alpha Sigma Chi Fraternity, which was afterwards consol- 
idated with the Beta Thcta I'iii organization. At college Mr. 
Ailing was also a member of various literary societies, and took 
a deep interest especially in the debates, in which he gained ex- 
perience that has been of much service to him since his entrance 
into the legal profession. 

After his graduation from Cornell, Mr. Ailing took a two 
years' course in Columbia College Law School, under Professor 
Dwight. During these years he delivered lectures on Daniel 
Webster, Alexander Hamilton and other distinguished Americans, 
and contributed largely to the public press. In 1885 he was 
graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, and in the same 
year was admitted to practice at the Bar. 

F'or a year after his graduation Mr. Ailing practiced his pro- 
fession in the office of and in conjunction with Judge Daniel W. 
Guernsey, after which he went with the firm of Piatt, Gerard & 
Bowers. In 1889 he formed a partnership under the liini name 
of Kenneson, Crain & Ailing. Of his partners, Mr. Kenneson is 
a graduate of Harvard University and of Havard Law School, 
while Mr. Crain is ex-Chamberlain and Treasurer of the City of 



32 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

New York. The firm does a large practice in corporation and 
litigation business, having among its clients many large companies 
and business houses and banking and brokerage firms identified 
with Wall Street and the financial and commercial affairs of the 
metropolis. 

Mr. Ailing is an ardent and enthusiastic Democrat and has 
been a Delegate to most of the County and State conventions of 
his party, while in campaign times it has been his custom to 
make political speeches in the Eastern and Middle States on 
behalf of the National and State Committees. He is a member 
of the Democratic Club, of which he has been Governor 
and Chairman of its House Committee. Mr. Ailing is also a 
member of the Metropolitan, Reform, and Manhattan clubs, the 
Bar Association, on the roster of which are most of the promi- 
nent lawyers in the city, the Alumni Association of Cornell 
University, the Dutchess County Club, the West End Associa- 
tion, the National Sound Money League, the New England 
Society, the New York Historical Society, the Pontiac Club, the 
New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, and is 
Governor of the Democratic Business Men's Association. Among 
the corporations for which Mr. Ailing is attorney is the Colonial 
Trust Company, which was organized by ex-Governor Roswell P. 
Flower, John E. Borne and others, while many other corpora- 
tions and financial organizations in the city avail themselves of 
his services. 

Mr. Ailing was married in June, 1894, to Miss Louise 
Floyd-Smith, who is a descendant of an old American Revolu- 
tionary family. Mrs. Ailing is a member of the Daughters of 
the American Revolution and of other social, patriotic and 
charitable organizations, and with her husband takes an active 
part in the social life of the metropolis. 




-DAj'^JJi:L y.APFLU'fDi^}. 





() American product is more -widely known or used 
more extensively throughout every portion of the 
civilized world than are the timepieces manufac- 
tured by the American Waltham Watch Company, 
in whose progress and wonderful development the 
subject of this review has been as largely instrumental as has 
any other man. Thorough and painstaking to the last degree, 
Mr. Appleton has ever insisted that the product of the great 
Massachusetts works should be as perfect as possible, and the 
high reputation and wonderful sale of the Waltham watch is 
a standing tribute to the judgment that prompted their excel- 
lence. For over a half century he has been a most conspicuous 
figure in New York's commercial as well as social life. 

Daniel F"uller Appleton, of the American Waltham Watch 
Company, and of the firm of Robbins & Appleton, New York 
and Boston, was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts, in 1826, 
and is the son of Gen. James Appleton and Sarah Fuller, his 
wife. Gen. James Appleton, the father of the subject of this 
biography, removed from Marblehead to Portland, Maine, in 1833. 
He became actively interested in political affairs, was several 
times the candidate for Governor of the old Liberty Party, the 
forerunner of the Republican organization, and was a con- 
spicuous advocate of anti-slavery and of temperance. He was an 
especially determined advocate of prohibition as applied to the 
liquor traffic, and was the first man anywhere to propose and 
propagate that principle — first by petition to the Legislature of 
Massachusetts, in 1831; and afterwards, in 1837, by a report to 
the Maine Legislature, of which he was then a member. 



33 



34 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

Daniel F. Appleton was educated in the public schools of 
Portland and, what was best of all, in his own home. His is the 
old story of a young man leaving his home at the age of 
twenty-one, with an ambition to do the best he could to rise in 
the world and make as much of fortune as the opportunities of 
the great city of New York would afford. Although he was 
without money and had no friends there who could assist him, 
he had not much trouble nor many difficulties in getting a start. 

After employment for a few months with a concern that 
soon went out of business, he answered the advertisement for a 
clerk of Royal E. Robbins, an importer of watches, by whom his 
application was at once accepted. His connection with Mr. Rob- 
bins has continued from that day to the present time, he having 
been admitted after a few years to a partnership in the business, 
forming the firm of Robbins & Appleton, who, in 1S57, became 
the owners of the then young and small watch-works at Walt- 
ham, Massachusetts. The firm soon after organized and estab- 
lished the American Waltham Watch Company, which business 
they have conducted continuously ever since. To the advancement 
and success of that business Mr. Appleton has given his constant 
and active attention, and it is a remarkable incident that he, with 
Mr. Robbins and his younger brother, Henry A. Robbins, have 
continued together in the same business actively for fifty years. 
It is to be noted that Mr. AjDpleton was content to begin and 
continue in the business of a watchmaker, in which he was 
brought up in the store of his elder brother, James, in Portland ; 
and that he sought to enlarge and develop it until his concern 
became by far the greatest watchmakers in the world. 

Mr. Appleton, though he never sought office, has been at 
times active in the councils of the Republican Party, to which 
he came by evolution from the old Liberty Party. He was a 
member of the first National Convention of that organization, 
held in Philadelphia, in 1856, when General Fremont was nomi- 
nated for the Presidency, and has ever since given to it his 
active and earnest support. 

Of all the many New England boys who have come to New 



DANIEL F. APPI.ETON. 35 

York to seek their fortune, and have contributed so much to the 
welfare and glory in many professions of the great city of their 
adoption, not many have attained a more prominent social posi- 
tion or a higher commercial standing than the subject of this 
sketch. He has been Vice-President of the Union League Club, 
a member of the Century, the Metropolitan, the Grolier and 
various other club organizations and associations, and served as 
President of the New England Society of the Cit)' of New 
York in 187S and 1879. 

Mr. Appleton has been twice married ; first in 1853, ^^ Julia 
Randall; and, second, in 1889, to Susan Cowles. He has three 
sons and two daughters : Francis Randall, Randall Morgan and 
James Waldingfield Appleton ; Mrs. Gerard Livingston Hoyt, of 
New York, and Mrs. Charles S. Tuckerman, of Boston. 




':rr?™iitD 





^^I^HE career of this prominent scientist represents the 
record of a busy life devoted to the science and 
applications of chemistry. Both of Dr. Austen's 
grandfathers were well known men. Peter Towns- 
end was one of the first large iron-masters of the 
United States. At his furnaces at Sterling, New York, was pro- 
duced the huge iron chain which blocked the Hudson River 
during the Revolution. David Austen was one of early New 
York's most prominent business men. David's son, John H., was 
for fifty years the well known dry goods auctioneer of New York. 
Peter Townsend Austen is a son of John H. and Elizabeth 
Townsend Austen, born September lo, 1852, at Clifton, Staten 
Island, educated at Isaac Holden's private school there, and was 
graduated Ph. B. Chemical Course, at the Columbia School of 
IMines, in 1872. Professor Austen also holds the degree of 
Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Zurich. After 
graduation at Columbia he studied for three years at the 
University of Berlin in the laboratory of the renowned chemist, 
A. W. Hofmann. As a member of the Faculty of Rutgers 
College, he was a member of the Peithosophian literary and Beta 
Theta Pi secret societies ; the Rutgers Athletic Association ; 
President of the Rutgers Phi Beta Kappa ; organizer and 
President of Raritan Lodge, No. 6, Ancient Order United 
Workmen. At the School of Mines he won the Torry prize for 
best qualitative analysis work, and assisted Professor C. F. 
Chandler on the "American Chemist." Since graduation he has 
been chemist to the Richmond County (N. Y.) Board of Health, 
the Newark Aqueduct Board, Jersey City Board of Public 



36 



PETER T. AUSTEX, Ph.D., F. C. S. 37 

Works, New Brunswick (N.J.) Board of Health, Newark (N.J.) 
Board of Health, New Jersey State Board of Agriculture, New 
Jersey State Chemist, and Presiding Officer of the New York 
Section of the American Cliemical Society. He is, or has been, 
a member of the American, French, German and Russian 
Chemical societies; the American Association for Advancement 
of Science; New Jersey State Sanitary Association; English 
Society of Chemical Industry; the Alumni Association of 
Columbia College, Manufacturers' Association of Kings and 
Queens Counties, New York ; Chemical Expert to the Brooklyn 
Board of Public Works ; General Manager of the Ledoux Chem. 
ical Laboratory; Civil Service Examiner in Chemistry to the 
City of Brooklyn, and President of the Chemical Department of 
the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. 

Even as early as 1876, in a letter to a friend, Professor 
A. W. Hofmann, of Berlin, wrote the following : " Mr. Austen 
combines with a perfectly sound and greatly extended knowledge 
of physical and chemical science a remarkable experimental skill 
and dexterity. His indomitable energy and undaunted persever- 
ance know no difficulties." 

On his return from Europe, in 1876, he became Instructor 
in Chemistry at Dartmouth; in 1877 Professor at Rutgers Col- 
lege and the New Jersey State Scientific School. His papers, 
which include nearly fifty titles, have appeared in leading jour- 
nals here and abroad. He has also published " Kur/e Einlei- 
tung zu den Nitro-Verbindungen " (Lcipsic, 1876); Pinner's 
" Organic Chemistry," translated and revised by him (New York, 
1893), and "Notes for Chemical Students" (1897). During the 
last ten years, also, a number of articles in the North American 
Review, and other journals. The article entitled "Chemists as 
Leaders" has been extensively quoted and re-published. 

When University Extension was taken up by Rutgers, he 
was asked to introduce it, and gave courses of illustrated lectures 
on chemistry at Middlebush, Millstone, East Millstone, New 
Brunswick, Paterson, Neshanic, South Orange, Elizabc:th, Mount 
Vernon and Kearny, awakening much enthusiasm. 



38 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

As expert chemist, Dr. Austen appeared in the case of the 
City of Newark vs. City of Passaic, for the complainant, and 
demonstrated, by experiment, that the pollution of the Passaic 
River at Passaic would extend to Newark. He also officially 
examined and condemned the Passaic River as a source of 
water-supply for the City of Newark, in the face of political and 
and other pressure, and brought to an end a contention of sev- 
eral years, whereupon the City sought and obtained a new 
water-supply. He has had wide experience in connection with 
city water-supplies. 

In the fall of 1893 he accepted the position of Professor of 
Chemistry in the new Chemical Department of the Brooklyn 
Polytechnic Institute. The rapid and successful development of 
this department was an evidence of his skill and experienced 
ability as an organizer. 

In the spring of 1897 he was chosen by American capitalists 
to visit and report on the Pegamoid industry of England and 
France, and, on July ist, he retired from the Polytechnic Insti- 
tute and accepted the position of Chief Chemist of the Pega- 
moid industries, in which position he has entire control of the 
scientific interests of this large industry. His research and tech- 
nical laboratories are finely equipped and he is assisted by a 
corps of capable chemists. 

As chemical expert and adviser he has been retained by 
many large manufacturing interests. His services as chemical ex- 
pert are in continual demand in court, and he has given expert 
testimony of the highest order in many of the great cases. The 
originality of his mind has enabled him to produce valuable in- 
ventions for which he has been granted patents. 

Dr. Austen is a member of the Hamilton Club, of Brooklyn, 
and of the Century, Knickerbocker Athletic and " Aschenbroedel," 
of New York. 




^.v^ 




iyitsJh^n. 





ANY of the \nun^'^ attorneys in the State of New 
^'ork have won deserved success at the Rar, and 
among the number are to be found some of tlie 
most earnest citizens in the CommonweaUh. It 
seems only natural in a great many cases that 
those having evinced an aptitude for the profession of law, with 
all its ramifications, have likewise an innate ability to shine in 
the legislative assemblies in their State, and George C. Austin, 
of whom this sketch is written, is a notable example of this. 
Still a comparatively young man and far short of the meridian of 
life, he has won recognition both in the political field and at the 
Bar, and has served two terms in the lower branch of the State 
Legislature, as the Representative of the Twenty-first Assembly 
District. Because of this, and of his success as a practitioner of 
law, he has attained a position of prominence in the community, 
and is recognized as one of the city's most progressive citizens. 

George Curtis Austin was born at Saluvia, Fulton County, 
Pennsylvania, on the 19th day of July, 1863. His father, Rowland 
Austin, was descended from the earliest families of Scotch-Irish 
settlers of the famous Cumberland Valley of Pennsylvania. His 
mother, Elizabeth Bohn, was of German extraction, and came of 
that sterling stock which has made the interior of the Keystone 
State famous the world over as a centre of progress coupled 
with solidity and strength. Mr. Austin was prepared for college 
at the Cumberland Valley State Normal School, and after com- 
pleting its course, in the fall of 1881, he entered Lafayette, 
pursued his studies there with the same determination and 
vigor as formerly, graduating and receiving the degree of Bachelor 



39 



40 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

of Philosophy in 1885. While a student at this institution he 
was a prominent member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity 
and of the Washington Literary Society. To his experience as a 
debater gained in the latter, indeed, he probably owes much of 
his success as a pleader before the Bar, on the stump and in the 
State's legislative halls. 

After leaving college his ambitious energy led him to come 
to New York City, where he obtained a subordinate position in 
the law office of Russell, Dennison & Latting, under whose guid- 
ance he commenced the study of law. Soon after, however, he 
entered the office of Booraem & Hamilton, with whom he con- 
tinued the study of the statutes. He graduated from Columbia 
Law School in 1887, taking the second prize of $150 for general 
proficiency, and soon after was admitted to the Bar. He then 
entered the law ofiice of Turner, Lee & McClure, but became 
a member of the firm of Seward, Guthrie, Morawetz & Steele, 
attorneys at law, in 1893, ^^^ soon determined to open an ofiice 
on his own account, and during the past few years he has en- 
gaged in practice alone. 

Mr. Austin is a young man, and exceptionally well learned 
in the law, and certain it is that he soon took his place side by 
side with New York's leading attorneys, and has gathered about 
him a practice which is the envy of many of his less successful 
brethren. He has been instructor in contracts at the New York 
Law School, is a member of the New York Bar Association, of 
the Colonial, the D. K. E., the West Side and the Riverside 
Republican clubs. Secretary of the Lafayette Alumni Association 
of New York, and of the Dwight Law Association, a member 
of the Presbyterian Church, the Masonic fraternity and the Red 
Men. 

Mr. Austin was elected to the Assembly of 1896 as a Re- 
publican by over 1,500 majority, and was appointed by Speaker 
Hamilton Fish, to be Chairman of the Committee on Affairs of 
Cities, and a member of the Claims Committee. His action 
while representing his district in the Halls of Legislation so 
thoroughly met with the approval of his constituents that he 



GEORGE C. AUSTIN. 



41 



was promptly re-elected In the fall of 1896, by over 4,000 ma- 
jority, and was again appointed Chairman of the Committee on 
Affairs of Cities, besides holding membership on a number of 
the other most important committees of the Legislature. In 
the Legislature of 1896-97 Mr. Austin introduced the Greater 
New York Charter, bills for the extension of Riverside Drive, 
New Hall of Records, Appellate Division Court House, incor- 
poration of New York Law School, New York Public Library, 
for $10,000,000 for public schools, and $2,500,000 for high 
schools. 

Mr. Austin is married to Miss Harriet J. Newman, and they 
have one child, Wilhelmine N. Austin. 

When Mr. Austin began his canvass for re-election the New 
York Press editorially published the following tribute : " No 
young man in politics has made more rapid progress than 
George C. Austin, who represents the Twenty-first Assembly Dis- 
trict in this city. In his first year in the Legislature he strode 
to the front and was honored with the Chairmanship of the 
Cities Committee, a position second in importance only to that 
of the Speakership. It is through this Committee that all legis- 
lation affecting all the cities of the State must pass. At the last 
session it was Mr. Austin who was entrusted with the parliament- 
ary direction of the bill which embodied the charter for the 
Greater New York. It was Mr. Austin, also, who had amended 
the Public Library Bill so that the library formed by the Tilden, 
Astor and Lenox foundations will have not only circulating de- 
partments, but will be open to the public on every evening in 
the week until 10 o'clock. This will make it a public library in 
the best sense of the term, and not a mere literary museum." 



^Mm.. 






NE of the best known members of the New 
York Bar is the subject of this article. While, 
with remarkable clearness of vision, sound com- 
mon sense, unwearying application and, above all, 
the courage of his convictions, he has forged his 
way to the front as a clever and skillful lawyer and a wise and 
discreet adviser in the courts he has also found time to take a 
deep interest in whatever of public occurrence pertained to the 
governmental affairs of his State and Nation and he holds an 
especially high place in the regard of his fellow Republicans 
who have bestowed upon him many marks of their appreciation 
of his probity, character and ability. 

Henry Clinton Backus was born in Utica, New York, on 
the 31st day of May, 1S48; but became a resident of New 
York City in 1850. He is the son of Charles Chapman Backus 
and Harriet Newell Baldwin. His paternal ancestors were Puri- 
tans — the first in this country, William Backus, having come 
from England and made his home at Saybrook, Connecticut, 
about the year 1635. He and his son Stephen were among 
those who, twenty-four years later, founded Norwich, Connecti- 
cut : and to William Backus was accorded the distinction of con- 
ferring upon the new settlement its name. The early records show 
that in 1700 William's grandson, Stephen, settled Canterbury, 
Connecticut. His son, Timothy Backus, engaged with success 
in a keen theological contest which lasted twelve years and 
caused much dissension in all New England in the middle of 
the Eighteenth Century. His son, Elisha Backus, great-grand- 
father of Henry Clinton, was among the brave soldiers led by the 



42 



HENRY CLINTON BACKUS. 43 

gallant General Putnam at the battle of Bunker Hill and was 
later a major in the American Revolution. Upon the close of 
the memorable struggle for independence Major Backus re- 
moved to Onondaga County, New York, and settled the village 
of Manlius. 1 1 is son, Hlisha, was a colonel in the War of 181 2 
and, after its close, owned and operated the stage-line — one- 
hundred and fifty miles long — which connected Utica with 
Watertown and Ogdensburg, New York ; and he thus opened 
up the central and northern part of the State to settlement and 
development. Charles Chapman Backus, his son, was a promi- 
nent citizen of Utica where for several years he was a member 
of the book publishing house of Bennett, Backus & Hawley, 
the largest publishing concern in central New York at that 
time, and issued the Baptist Register, since become the Ex- 
aminer of New York City, then and now widely known and 
recognized as the leading Baptist publication in the country. 
Removing to New York City about 1850 he engaged actively 
and most efficiently in the formation and advancement of the 
American Express Company and subsequently in other import- 
ant enterprises. His wife, Harriet Newell Baldwin, was the 
daughter of Edward Baldwin and Anne Lewis who both came 
to this country from Wales in 1800 and married and settled in 
the then mere hamlet of Utica, New York, in 1805. Edward 
Baldwin quickly became and remained long prominent in llic 
evolution of that city until his death in 1871. 

During the War of the Rebellion our subject, Henry Clin- 
ton Backus, commanded a company in a regiment called the 
" McClellan Grays" and organized for the defence of the; na- 
tional capitol in case of sudden or dangerous attack upon it by 
the rebels : and this regiment stood ready for any other great 
and urgent emergency of the National Government. The regi- 
ment was made up of youth in the public schools of New York 
City who were under age for legal enlistment yet were inspired 
by patriotic fervor. During this period he also gathered and 
taught in the Sunday School of one of the fashionable churches 
in New York City, for two years, a class of colored children — an 



44 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

act which at that time required no little moral as well as 
physical courage on his part. 

He received his early education in the public schools of 
New York City, at private schools and under the guidance of 
private tutors. He prepared finally for college with Professor 
Wentworth, at Phillips Academy, in Exeter, New Hampshire, 
and then entered Harvard University, at Cambridge, Massachu- 
setts, from which he was graduated in 1871. Having been 
graduated from the Columbia University Law School in 1873 he 
was immediately thereupon admitted to the New York Bar. At 
first Mr. Backus was connected with the office of Sanford, Robin- 
son & Woodruff; but, a year later, with that of Beebe, Wilcox 
& Hobbs. The latter firm had at that time the largest admiralty 
practice in the United States courts and Mr. Backus gained 
valuable experience in this department. He has acted as counsel 
in many important cases requiring adjudication of the municipal 
and civil law of the land. The management of several estates 
exacts of him careful and conscientious attention. His thorough 
knowledge of constitutional history and of constitutional and inter- 
national law is frequently invoked for litigants and by others. 
While not making a specialty of criminal practice, in the note- 
worthy case of the State of Kansas vs. Baldwin Mr. Backus 
undoubtedly saved the life of an innocent man. Sentence of 
death had been passed upon the defendant without the adduce- 
ment of any properly incriminating evidence and in response to 
an unreasoning local clamor for a conviction for the assumed 
murder of his sister: and the Supreme Court of the State refused 
to rectify the wrong. Mr. Backus prepared an elaborate brief ; 
and caused the publication and distribution throughout Kansas 
of editorial articles in The Nezu York Tribune, The New York 
Sun and The Albany Law Journal, thereby creating a counter 
current of public opinion which impelled the Governor of 
Kansas to investigate carefully and ultimately to grant the 
application for absolute and unconditional pardon. 

Mr. Backus is a Republican ; and was chosen a Delegate 
to the Republican County Committee of New York annually for 



HENRY CLINTON BACKUS. 45 

over ten years, during five of which he served upon its 
Committee on Resolutions and gave clear, forcible and attractive 
expression to its declarations. The passage of an amendment 
to the constitution of the County Committee, whereby twenty- 
five voters in any Assembly district were empowered to compel 
the polls, at any primary election, to remain open twelve 
instead of six hours, was due to his efforts while in that 
committee. In December, 1890, he was chosen chairman of the 
delegation from his Assembly district to the Republican County 
Committee and leader in the district for 1891 but was con- 
fronted in the following month with a most bitter, protracted 
and memorable contest, lasting five months, for the delegation's 
seats. In the end, however, Mr. Backus prevailed: and soon a 
peace, unknown for years in the district, was induced among the 
warring Republican factions. This year Mr. Backus was placed 
upon the Executive Committee of the Republican County Com- 
mittee. In the following year he declined continuance in the 
position of chairman and leader when urged upon him. He is 
now the chairman of the delegation from his Assembly district in 
the Republican General Committee, having joined in the movement 
to lift the party out of the corrupt practices which have nearly 
throttled it and much diminished its strength locally at the polls 
lately. Frequently he has represented his district in County and 
State Conventions. He has refused nominations for the As- 
sembly thrice, for Judge of the City Court and for Surrogate. In 
1893 he was nominated at the head of the delegation to 
represent the Seventh Senatorial District in the Constitutional 
Convention of New York State and, although the district was 
overwhelmingly Democratic and his immediate opponent was 
William C. Whitney, Mr. Backus polled the highest vote given 
for any candidate on the Republican ticket in that district at that 
election. Mr. Backus is a speaker who is interesting in style, 
pellucid in statement, forceful and cogent in logic : his evident 
sincerity and frankness arouse a sympathetic credence in his 
hearers. 

He was a member of the committee upon the erection of 



46 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

the grand and stately monument on Riverside Drive, New York 
City, to the fame of Ulysses S. Grant. 

Mr. Backus is a member of the Round Table Club; the 
Chelsea Republican Club; the Republican Club of the City of 
New York ; the Dwight Alumni Association ; the Harvard Club 
of New York City; the New York City and New York State 
Bar Associations; a Fellow of the American Geographical Society; 
and an honorary member of the Railway Conductors' Club of 
North America. 

He married, in 1890, Miss Hattie I. Davis, a lady who is 
an active member of the Board of Managers of the New York 
Colored Orphan Asylum and is well known in the charitable 
and benevolent circles of New York City. Of two children 
born to them one, a son, Clinton D., is living. 





HE great field of medico-legal jurisprudence has no 
more noted nor able exponent than him of whom 
this sketch is written. A thorough lawyer in 
every branch of that most exacting of professions, 
he has devoted his life and acquired his reputa- 
tion principally by combining his knowledge of the statutes with 
a deep insight into the principles of forensic medicine, of which 
he has made a special study. 

Ci.ARK Bell was born in Jefferson County, New York, 
March 12, 1832. He received a preparatory education at I''rank- 
lin Academy, New York, and at seventeen was prepared for ad- 
mission to Yale College, a consummation which was unhappily 
denied him because of his delicate health. His tutors were Guy 
H. McMaster, of Bath, New York, and Rev. J. Merrill Manning, 
of Boston. A course of outdoor exercise prescribed by his phy- 
sicians, however, soon produced for Mr. Bell a robust physique. 
His strength and vigor returning, he began the study of law, 
and, when twenty-one, was admitted to the Bar, beginning prac- 
tice at Hammondsport, New York, where he succeeded the late 
Morris Brown, his former precei^tor. On the retirement of Lieu- 
tenant-Governor Robert Campbell, Mr. Bell removed to Bath, 
New York, and became one of the members of the firm of 
McMaster & Bell, which at once entered upon a large and lucra- 
tive practice ; our subject soon being retained by the promoters 
of the Union Pacific Railway Company as their attorney and 
general counsel, this position compelling his removal to New 
York in 1864. Mr. Bell had charge of the company's legislation 
before both Houses of Congress, and he prepared the text of the 



47 



48 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

act which passed both bodies and got the authority under which 
the road was constructed. Mr. Bell was also attorney for the 
Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and for various corporations, 
and was head of the law firm of Bell, Bartlett & Wilson, of this 
city. His associate, Edward T. Bartlett, is now a member of 
the Bench of the New York Court of Appeals. One of the 
most widely known of his cases was that of the defence of 
George Francis Train, before Chief Justice Charles P. Daly and 
a special jury. This trial occupied several months, and in it 
prominent insanity experts were examined, Mr. Bell securing the 
release of his client. 

In 1870 Mr. Bell became a member of the Medico-Legal 
Society. Since that time, he has, more than any American, 
rendered important services to the great cause of medical juris- 
prudence, and that this organization has recognized his eminent 
services is proven by the fact that Mr. Bell was honored with 
its Presidency for twelve years, besides holding many other of 
the most prominent places in its administration. He made the 
first collection of books for the use of the Society and is, in 
fact, the founder of its extensive library. It was his active zeal 
as much as any other cause that brought the Medico-Legal So- 
icety of New York into deserved prominence not only with the 
profession of law and medicine, but with the public at large, giv- 
ing it both national and international reputation. To Mr. Bell 
more than to any one person in this country, therefore, is due 
the praise of bringing the professions of law and medicine into 
more intimate social, scientific and friendly relations. 

He is a prolific writer on a variety of subjects. His published 
works are entitled " Bell's Medico-Legal Studies," which have al- 
ready reached five volumes, and the sixth is now in the press — 
covering nearly every branch of forensic medicine. Among his 
best known earlier productions are the following : " The Coroner 
System and its Needed Reforms," "Suicide and Legislation," 
"The Rights of the Insane," "Madness and Crime," and "Shall 
We Hang the Insane Who Commit Homicide?" 

Mr. Bell was President of the International Medico-Legal 



CLARK BELL. 49 

Congress of 1889, held in the City of New York; of the same 
body held in Chicago in 1893, and of the Medico-Legal Con- 
gress of 1895, held in the Federal Court building in the City of 
New York. His measure of usefulness, too, in the department of 
the profession to which he has devoted so much of his attention, 
was much enlarged when, in 1883, he was elected to the editor- 
ship of the Medico-Legal Journal, then just founded, and the 
last fifteen years have found Mr. Bell still occupying this respon- 
sible post. 

Mr. Bell is an honorary member of the Medico-Legal So- 
ciety of France, of the Societe de Medicine Mental de Beige, of 
the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons ; of the 
National Association of Railway Surgeons ; of the Netherland 
Society of Psychiatry ; of the Portuguese Neurological Society ; 
of the Medico-Legal societies of Massachusetts, of Rhode Island, 
of the City of Chicago, of the City of Philadelphia, and of the 
City of Denver; a corresponding member of the Italian Society 
of Freniatry ; of the Russian Society of Psychiatry ; of the Bel- 
gian Society of Anthropologic ; of the Paris Society Medico- 
Psychologique ; of the New York Academy of Anthropology, and 
of many other bodies, and is in correspondence with scientific 
men of all countries on current medico-legal questions. He was 
also a member of the International Committee representing North 
America in the conference held at Antwerp, September, 1885, to 
consider the best basis for international statistics regarding the 
insane. 

Mr. Bell is a man of remarkable mental activity, besides 
possessing a physique so sturdy that it renders him capable of an 
almost unlimited amount of intellectual labor. He seems never 
to spare himself, no matter in what engaged, but works without 
stint or intermission, until his work is accomplished. He is full 
of vigor and energy, and may reasonably look forward to a long 
career of active usefulness. He has the degree of Doctor of 
Laws, conferred by Rutherford College and by Taylor Univer- 
sity. 



»-7 





IJT is probable that no branch of scientific investiga- 
tion, during the past quarter of a century, has 
made more rapid strides or exerted a more benefi- 
cent influence over humanity than the art of heal- 
ing. From a position where the results of its 
endeavors were, to say the least, problematical, it has, within a 
comparatively few years, advanced until to-day it may properly 
be regarded as an almost exact science. In bringing about the 
progress that has attended the investigations into this most hu- 
mane of fields, few physicians of the Empire State have done 
more or have more justly won the appreciative applause of the 
public than Dr. Joseph N. Bishop, of whose career this sketch is 
written. 

Joseph Norton Bishop, of New York City, was born in Al- 
gonquin, Greenville County, Ontario, May 30, 1844. His father 
was William James Bishop, the descendant of a prominent family 
of Litchfield County, Connecticut, and one whose ancestry were 
ardent "loyalists" during the Revolution. His mother was Mary 
E. Barton, whose lineage can be traced to one of Holland's 
sturdiest families. Until the subject of this review had reached 
the age of twenty, his education was acquired principally in the 
public schools of the district in which he lived. Here he early 
developed marks of a strong character and a man of more than 
ordinary comprehension. He was scarcely of age when he passed 
a stringent examination, and was himself commissioned to teach. 
On the morning following his twentieth birthday. Dr. Bishop 
started for Ogle County, Illinois, where he worked upon his 
uncle's farm, soon after securing a position as instructor in the 



50 




Vc- (Tl^i^ 




JOSEPH N. niSHOP. 51 

neighboring school, in which lie taught five months. With the 
money he had saved he then entered Wheaton College, near 
Chicago, pursuing his studies and teaching alternately, by the lat- 
ter course being enabled to defray the expenses of his tuition. 
From Wheaton he went to Hathaway Academy, Chicago, where 
he continued his course of studies and acted as assistant teacher. 
In 1S69, while there, he was commissioned as Assistant State Su- 
perintendent of Education of Mississippi by order of General O. 
O. Howard, of the War Department of the United States Go\'- 
ernment. He remaintnl in tliis post and fulfilled the duties of the 
position with satisfaction until 1871, when lie was made Superin- 
tendent of Education in Lowndes County, Mississippi. So suc- 
cessful was he tiiat, in 1875, he was re-appointed and servc;d until 
he resigned and removed from the State. In 1869 the Governor 
of Mississippi appointed him to be Trustee of the Franklin 
Academy. In connection with his educational works in the 
State, he acquired an enviable reputation as an active business 
man, and took a keen interest in commercial affairs. 

In 1875 Dr. Hishoi) removed to Orange County, Florida 
where he had purchased about two hundred acres of timbered 
land si.x miles from Sanford, lying on Lake Monroe, at the head 
of the St. Johns River. This land he surveyed and tlivided into 
lots and blocks, and established the town of Paola, where he has 
at present over fifty acres of orange trees, and a comfortable and 
attractive winter home. 

Although he had early manifested a desire to pursue the 
study of medicine, it was not until 1876 that Dr. Bishop was 
able to put that plan into operation. In this year he entered tin; 
Long Island College Hospital, in Brooklyn, from which, after 
pursuing this course with commendable assiduity and success, he 
was graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1879. 
Ill health, however, compelled him to remain in the South during 
the winters, and he practiced medicine in Florida while looking 
after his business interests, he having been one of the foremost 
men in all enterprises which looked to the development and ad- 
vancement of his town and county. 



52 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

He was one of the Directors and originators of the first tel- 
egraph line from Sanford to Ocala, Florida, and was the origi- 
nator and prime moving spirit in the construction and operation 
of the Sanford and Lake Eustis Railroad Company, the stock- 
holders and directors of which organization showed their appre- 
ciation of his endeavors by making him President of the road. 

In 1887, Dr. Bishop's health having been restored by the 
soothing climate in the South, in order to enlarge his scope of 
work in his chosen profession, he removed to New York City and 
opened an office at 12 West Thirty-eight street, taking up, as a 
specialty, nervous troubles and diseases of women, to which 
branch of his profession he devotes the bulk of his time and 
attention, and in which he has acquired an enviable reputation. 
A man of strong personality, genial disposition and great domes- 
ticity, he enjoys the confidence and respect, not only of his 
patients and associates, but of all who make his acquaintance. 
He has acquired a practice unsurpassed in the Commonwealth, 
and is frequently called to Washington as the physician to Presi- 
dent and Mrs. McKinley. He is a man of commanding per- 
sonality and attributes his magnificent support of good health 
and endurance under the exacting and varied duties of his prac- 
tice to his temperate habits and discardment of tobacco and 
liquors, and even of tea and coffee. 

Dr. Bishop is a member of the County Medical Society, the 
Physicians' Mutual Aid Association, the Camera Club, and is the 
President of the Social Culture Club. He was married on June 
27, 1877, to Mrs. Gussie M. Marsh, of New London, Connecti- 
cut. They have no children. 

Dr. Bishop has traveled extensively throughout not only the 
Western Hemisphere, but has visited all the principal points of 
interest in Great Britain, France, Switzerland, Germany, Russia, 
Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and elsewhere in 
the Old World, and his letters from the Land of the Midnight 
Sun attracted wide attention. 




.^•e^-<3^e^ - "g^^ 




FRANK S. BLACK 








\'KNTS in a lif<i like that of Governor Frank S. 
Black crowd each other so rapidly that any sketch 
is apt to be incomplete in that it may not include 
his latest and, perhaps, his greatest public 
achievement. He is of that stamp of history- 
makers about whom no man may, with assurance, say that he 
can write his life and select the page in it on which another gen- 
eration will linger longest in admiration. Governor Black is still 
building, with brain and honest purpose and an energy that is 
tireless, a reputation whose horizon is ever widening. And he is 
building, too, as did all men who have builded strong and well. 
He has selected his own materials and fashioned them in the 
mold planned by himself. He has thrown in no fortuitous cir- 
cumstance nor has he appropriated accidental happenings and 
posed on them. He has been and is Frank S. Black throughout. 
What fame he has, he wrought himself. What pinnacle he 
stands upon is made of his own achievements. Upon him there 
is no reflected glory. What is best in his public career, no man 
versed in the inner history of our times but knows they were of 
his own conception and his own completion. 

His life has been a singularly successful one. All the years 
of it have been a series of advancement. His aims have been 
achieved at great labor, and, ofttimes at much sacrifice, but 
from the day he bade adieu to the old homestead in York 
County, Maine, until he (Mitered upon his duties as Governor of 
the State of New York, not a single reverse has he met. New 
York State, in its political history, knows no parallel ; the search 
is in vain for another man whose stride has been so uniformly 



53 



54 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

forward or who, at some time, in the labor to reach the summit 
on Capitol Hill in Albany, has not been forced backward tem- 
porarily. That summit, half way up to the Matterhorn of the 
Presidency on which so many politicians have been lost, rarely 
ever has been gained by a man who, like Governor Black, has 
owed so much to himself, and so little to circumstance or who 
has so few accounts to settle with the future. 

It may be that it is because Frank S. Black always did 
everything he set to do so well and so promptly that his present 
is so little embarrassed and his future so little discounted. He 
has paid his way personally in the world and to the body politic 
has discharged all obligations by the fullest performance of every 
duty. In his advance upward, he was careful of the condition of 
the balance sheet of his last previous position, so that he entered 
upon his new duties without any fetters that, if they would not 
shackle, might, at least, impede. For such a man, he would 
be bold indeed who would lay down any line of limitation and 
with a milestone would designate a spot beyond which he might 
not go. Because of the fact that his progress is not necessarily 
the result of any movement nor the consequence of any chain of 
circumstances, a sketch of his life is one not difficult to make. 

Frank S. Black was born in Livingston, in Southwestern 
Maine, on March 8, 1853, and was one of eleven children. His 
father was a farmer and, while an industrious one, the aid of 
every child was necessary that the homestead might be saved to 
them. Later, the family removed to Alfred, Maine, and there 
Frank was able to attend the Limerick and afterward the Leb- 
anon Academy. The money necessary to do this, he earned 
himself. While at the Lebanon Academy he was forced to walk 
three miles to it every winter's day and three miles back home 
in the evening. His summers he spent in the fields working, 
earning the money with which to pay his fees in the winter. 

Then he taught school and with the money thus earned 
entered Dartmouth College in 1875. In the first year he was 
able to attend his classes for only eleven weeks, when his funds 
ran out and he secured a place as teacher in a school on Cape 



FRANK S. BLACK. 55 

Cod. Even when he was a senior he taught school at Province- 
town. Notwithstanding the difficulties attending his course from 
lack of funds and the necessity of absence to replenish them, he 
was one of the honor men on commencement day and twice had 
been chosen a prize speaker. 

Although the recommendations of the faculty of Dartmouth 
secured him the choice of three principalships, he declined them. 
Teaching had been to him merely a means to an end. He had 
aspired to a collegiate education, achieved it through teaching 
and with the result gained, he quit it. He was bound for the 
law. Without money and without friends of influence, he had to 
aim for his new goal in a circuitous way. Teaching had won 
him his collegiate education and he decided that newspaper work 
would be the avenue through which he would reach the law. 
His first work was on the Johnstown, Fulton County, Herald, in 
this State. At the same time he entered a law office in Johns- 
town as a student. His course, politically, was not satisfactory to 
the owner and Mr. Black resigned. 

From Johnstown he went to Troy and, while working at 
night, as a reporter on the Troy Whig, he studied law. In the 
office in which he entered he soon became managing clerk, and 
was the first man to use a typewriter in that city. In 1879 he 
was called to the Bar. For a year he was associated as junior 
counsel with a big firm and then started in for himself, and in 
two years there was no case of great commercial interest or in- 
volving any delicate question of law that did not have Frank S. 
Black retained on one side or the other. It was said by more 
than one judge that he had the best ordered mind at the Rens- 
selear Bar and that he always knew not only what was the 
remedy his client sought but exactly how to proceed to get it. 
His addresses to the courts, in clearness of statement and appro- 
priateness of illustration, were forerunners of the State papers he 
afterwards was to prepare — the best in literary and argumentative 
merit that are on file in the State Library. 

And all the time, Frank S. Black neither was a clubman nor 
a social lion nor a politician. His nights he spent with his wife 



56 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

and his little boy in their modest home on Pine Woods Avenue, 
not believing that merely because he was a great lawyer he 
should become an indiscriminate corner talker or club-room de- 
bater. In politics he always took an earnest part. He worked 
from the beginning of a campaign until the end of it, but not 
in the ordinary methods employed up to that time in Troy. 

When the time for the punishment of election frauds came, 
however, it was Frank S. Black who went to the front. He had 
bills presented to the Legislature calling for honest elections, but 
his political opponents were in power and they did not pass. 
At the head of a delegation of citizens he called upon the Gov- 
ernor for protection at the polls, but was repulsed in the chamber 
which three years afterwards he entered as Governor himself. In 
the election Robert Ross, a Republican watcher at the polls, was 
shot and killed by a man named " Bat " Shea. Mr. Black organ- 
ized a Committee on Public Safety and prosecuted the murderer. 
Shea was convicted and electrocuted, and, in the next Republican 
Legislature, the Black bills for the safety of voters and the 
purity of the ballot were passed. 

Rensselear County insisted, as a recognition of Mr. Black's 
services, on making him Chairman of the Republican County 
Committee. In 1894 they sent him to Congress, and, in 1896, 
the Republican State Convention chose him its candidate for 
Governor. That contest is history too recent to demand more 
than a recapitulation of the votes received. It is : Frank S. 
Black, Republican, 787,516 ; Wilbur F. Porter, Democrat, 
574,524 ; Daniel G. Griffin, National Democrat, 26,698 ; William 
W. Smith, Prohibitionist, 17,419; Howard Balkam, Socialist- 
Labor, 18,362. 

Governor Black assumed office January i, 1897, and, while 
always the staunchest and sturdiest of Republicans, has been the 
Governor of all the people of all the State. His administration 
has been a strong one, vigorous both in achievement of positive 
measures and in repression of vicious or frivolous legislation. 
His preservation of the Adirondacks, his completion of the Cap- 
itol, his re-organization of the National Guard, his message call- 



FRANK S. BLACK. 



57 



ing for $1,000,000 that the Guard might be eqiii])[)etl for the 
war, and his Pure Primary Law, of themselves, did they stand 
alone, would mark it for warmest commendation. Under his 
direction, all the State departments have been conducted hon- 
estly and economically, the tax rate has been reduced, and the 
Legislature of 189S, under its prompting, made a record in early 
adjournment. 

Governor Black's wife was Miss Lois Hamlin, daughter of 
Dr. Hamlin, of Provincetown, Massachusetts. She is an expert 
musician and a genial, charming woman. Mr. and Mrs. Black 
have a son, Arthur, now seventeen years of age. 



=~^ .^„^,^_^ 











ERCHANT, banker and statesman of the highest 
rank, Cornelius N. Bliss to-day occupies a posi- 
tion before the people of the nation that is not 
excelled by any living New Yorker. With a 
stainless record and the full confidence of the 
community, he is known throughout the State as a man of very 
o-reat ability and executive capacity, traits the possession of 
which are amply demonstrated by his faithful and efficient con- 
duct of the governmental affairs that fall under his control as 
Secretary of the Interior of the United States. His career is 
an open book, with no act recorded therein which he has cause 
to reo-ret, and the place he has won in the mercantile, financial 
and political worlds stamps him as distinctively entitled to a 
place as a representative citizen of the Empire Commonwealth. 

Cornelius Newton Buss was born in Fall River, Massachu- 
setts, on the 26th day of January, 1833, of excellent English and 
American ancestry, dating back in this country almost to Ply- 
mouth Rock. Mr. Bliss disclosed early in life the sterling quali- 
ties that everywhere command success. After attending school 
at Fall River until he was thirteen years old, and completing his 
scholastic training in the High School at New Orleans, he began 
his brilliant career in the business world about 1849, by entering 
the establishment of James M. Beebe & Company, importers and 
jobbers of dry-goods, of Boston. They were the largest dealers 
in their line in the United States at that time, and in their ser- 
vice young Bliss had a chance to show his capacity. How well 
he improved the opportunity is evident from the fact that he 
ultimately acquired an interest in the business. The firm of 



58 





^/ir7r72.^>^^.i^^^ 



CORNELIUS N. BLISS. 59 

Beebe & Company having dissolved, in 1866 Mr. Bliss became a 
partner in the firm of John S. & Eben Wrij^ht & Company, of 
Boston, selling agents for some of the largest New England man- 
ufacturers. In the year mentioned the house established a New 
York branch, and Mr. Bliss took charge of it. With the ampler 
opportunities of the great city, he made himself more and more 
important in the business world. On the death of the senior 
Wright, in 1874, the firm assumed the style of Wright, Bliss & 
Fabyan, with offices in New York, Boston and Philadelphia 
Since 1881 the concern has been known as Bliss, P'abyan & 
Company, and has come to be one of the strongest mercantile 
houses in the world. Selling agents for a number of mills that 
rank among the greatest manufacturing corporations of the conti- 
nent — the Pepperell Manufacturing Company, the Laconia Com- 
pany, the Androscoggin Mills, the Otis Company, and others — 
Bliss, Fabyan & Company transact a business not exceeded by 
any competitive firm, and amounting every year to not far from 
twenty millions of dollars. 

In recounting thus the commercial side of Mr. Bliss's life 
the half has not been told. More important still is his splendid 
career as a broad-minded citizen and a tower of strength to 
every good cause. For many years his name has been one of 
the first to be mentioned whenever any question of great public 
interest has come up for discussion and settlement. Political, 
financial and social questions alike have engaged the attention 
and received the benefit of his wide experience and sagacious 
counsel. Though he has never until very lately held a public 
position that carried a dollar of salary with it, he has long been 
recognized everywhere as a political leader of stainless reputation. 
He has repeatedl)' refus(!d nomination to high offices, inchuling 
the Mayoralty of New York City and the Governorship of New 
York State. In the higher councils of the Republican party, how- 
ever, he has had a prominent place for many years, serving as a 
Delegate to city, county, State and national conventions. In 1884 
he was made Chairman of a committee of one hundred business 
men appointed at a large public meeting held in Cooper Union 



6o REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

to attend the National Convention and urge the nomination of 
Gen. Chester A. Arthur for the Presidency. He was Chairman 
of the New York State Republican Committee in 1887 and again 
in 1888. In the Presidential campaign cf 1892 Mr. Bliss was a 
member of the Executive Committee of the Republican National 
Committee, and he was Treasurer of the National Committee in 
the campaigns of 1S92 and 1896. His services in the latter 
capacity were so eminently able that when President McKinley 
came to make up his council of advisers he tendered the distin- 
guished New Yorker the post of Secretary of the Interior. Mr. 
Bliss's personal inclinations would doubtless have led him to 
decline the honor, but the call was so urgent that he at last 
consented, and has since administered the duties of this impor- 
tant position with honor to himself and complete satisfaction to 
the people and the Executive. 

Naturally enough, Mr. Bliss has been called upon to devote 
some of his business ability to the affairs of various financial, 
philanthropic and social institutions. Of these he is Vice-Presi- 
dent of the Fourth National Bank, Director of the Central 
Trust Company and of the Equitable Life Assurance Company, 
and Governor and Treasurer of the Society of the New York 
Hospital. Secretary Bliss is a Vice-President of the Chamber of 
Commerce, and has been Chairman of Its Executive Committee. 
He is a member of the Union League Club, and belongs to 
various similar institutions, including the Republican, Century, 
Metropolitan, Riding, Union and Players' clubs. 




rV / 7'r/^-^^-^<.c-^4p(^ 




|M 



ANY of the most prominent citizens in the Empire 
State are men who, while they Iiave attained recog- 
nition in commercial circles through close attention 
to their business affairs, with patriotic spirit have 
yet found time to interest themselves in the cause 
of good government in city, State and nation. Of such men the 
Republican Party in the Empire State claims as one of its most 
prominent representatives William Brookfield, who, while he has 
never consented to accept the nomination for an elective office, 
and has held no political office save that of Commissioner of 
Public Works under Mayor Strong, (and that even was resigned 
by him in a few months) has been honored by his party with 
many marks of its esteem, and has frequently lain aside his pri- 
vate business to devote himself to political affairs. 

William Brookfield was born at Greenbank, New Jersey, 
May 24, 1844, and is the son of James M. and Catharine A. 
Brookfield. His great-grandfather was born in Norway, of Irish 
parents, but came to New Jersey while still a young man. His 
grandfather was born in that State, as was also his father. After 
a preliminary education in the common schools of his native 
town, followed by a course in the academies at Bethany and 
Honesdale, Pennsylvania, he entered the Cayuga Lake Academy, 
at Aurora, New York, and remained there until 1861. The si.\ 
months following were spent as a clerk in a country store. Be- 
ing then but sixteen years of age, he entered business with his 
father in the State Street Glass Works, and later in the South 
Brooklyn Glass Works. In September, 1864, they started the 
Bushwick Glass Works, at Williamsburg, to which Mr. Brookfield 



61 



62 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

has since given tlie greater part of his attention, and of which 
he is now the sole proprietor. Besides his connection with this 
establishment, Mr. Brookfield is President of the Sheldon Axle 
Company, Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, the Franklin Loan and 
Improvement Company of New Jersey; is Vice-President of the 
Addison and Pennsylvania Railway Company, and a Director in 
the Augusta Manganese Company, the Greenwich Insurance 
Company and the Kings County Fire Insurance Company, 
besides holding membership in the New York Chamber of Com- 
merce, the Consolidated Stock and Petroleum Exchange, the 
Board of Trade and Transportation, and the New York Produce 
Exchange. Mr. Brookfield's prominence in the business to which 
he devotes the bulk of his attention was ably demonstrated when 
he was elected to the Presidency of the National Association of 
Glass Manufacturers, which he held for five years. 

Mr. Brookfield is a Trustee of Wells College, ex-President 
of St. John's Guild, to which he has devoted a great deal of his 
time and energy. He is an attendant of Rev. Dr. John Hall's 
Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, taking a deep interest in and 
being a large contributor to a number of the most worthy be- 
nevolent and charitable institutions in the city. 

Always actively interested in political affairs, Mr. Brookfield 
has long been prominent in the Twenty-first District, and has 
held a leading position in Republican politics in New York City. 
He has never consented to accept an elective office, but was, 
however, Presidential Elector in 1888. Mr. Brookfield has been 
Vice-President of the Union League Club ; Delegate to the 
Republican National Conventions of 1888 and 1892; four times 
Chairman of the Republican State Committee ; three times Pres- 
ident of the Republican County Committee of New York City ; 
has been President of the Republican Club, holding the Chair- 
manship of the State and the Presidency of the County commit- 
tees, as well as the executive office of the Republican Club 
during the same year. 

In the citizens' movement in New York City in 1894, which 
resulted in the nomination and the election of William L. Strong 



WILLIAM BROOKFIELD. 63 

for Mayor, Mr. Brookfield's part was a prominent and consistent 
one. He was a member of the Committee of Seventy, and was 
one of the earliest to ajipreciate the distinct advantages of a 
Union ticket. While, as a Republican, he demanded that the 
nominee for Mayor should be of that political faith, he was ear- 
nest and successful in his insistance that all the elements repre- 
sented in the fusion should be recognized on the ticket. Mr. 
Brookfield, it is generally known, was the actual manager of Mr. 
Strong's campaign, and, after the election, in so far as his private 
business duties would permit, he was the adviser of the Mayor 
in many of the projects which marked the administration. He 
accepted the Commissionership of Public Works at the urgent 
request of the Mayor, though in doing so he sacrificed a plan 
for a trip abroad. Me retained the office until it was in good 
working order and then resigned. Mr. Brookfield's interest in 
politics has continued to the present day. He is of that class 
which regards activity in politics as a duty, and not either as a 
profession where it is apt to assume a selfish hue or as a recrea- 
tion, in which latter event it may be alloyed with an unthinking 
eccentricity. In the earnest discussion of a pure primary bill by 
the Legislature of the State of New York last winter, Mr. 
Brookfield was one of the most valued advisers. 

Mr. Brookfield holds membership in the Union League Clubs 
of New York and Brooklyn, in the Down-Town Association ; is 
ex-President of the Fulton Club and the Republican Club, is a 
member of the Lotus, New York Athletic and Barnard Clubs. 
He was married, June 23, 1870, to Miss Kate Morgan, of Au- 
rora, New York. They have four sons living, Henry M., Prank, 
J. H., and Edwin Morgan. 




^^^^i^_.j^g^^ 



{'{ J-J JOSEPH H. CHOATE. fi )) 





OSEPH HODGES CHOATE, of the New York 
Bar, was born at Salem, Massachusetts, on the 24th 
day of January, 1833, and is a descendant of one 
of the oldest and most highly regarded families 
of New England, many of his relatives and ances- 
tors having gained signal distinction in various fields of endeavor, 
and particularly in the legal profession. Mr. Choate entered 
Harvard University when he was sixteen years of age, and was 
graduated in 1852. Having decided to enter the profession so 
honorable in the family records, he then matriculated at Dane 
Law School, from which he graduated in 1854, after two years 
of assiduous application, and was admitted to practice at the 
Massachusetts Bar in the following year. 

In 1856 Mr. Choate came to New York, to whose Bar he 
obtained ready admission, and from that date to the present time 
he has been engaged in the practice of his profession in New 
York City with brilliant success, and has won a reputation as a 
lawyer equal to that of the most distinguished advocates in the 
United States. Among the cases in which he has been engaged 
are many famous ones, in most of which he has borne a leading 
part and gained deserved applause for his forensic ability and 
deep and thorough knowledge of the law. To describe all the 
cases in which he has thus been prominent would be far beyond 
the space at our disposal, and be almost equivalent to writing 
a legal history of New York for more than a quarter of a cen- 
tury past. 

Mr. Choate's distinction as one of the leaders of the Bar of 
New York is not his only legal claim to consideration. He is as 



64 




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crixJljJL^ 



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/'tx^^CY 



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JOSEPH H. CHOATE. 65 

popular as he is able, and may be considered as one of tlie best 
known lawyers of the city in this particular. His popularity is 
not confined to his clientage and to the people at large, but 
extends to the profession as well, it being doubtful if any other 
lawyer in the city has more professional friends and well-wishers 
than has Joseph H. Choate. This popularity is due, in large 
measure, to his personal gifts of courtesy and geniality, which 
are so marked as to win him the friendship of all with whom he 
comes in contact. 

Among the most celebrated cases in which IMr. Choate has 
been engaged may be named that of General Fitz-John Porter, 
whom he served as counsel in his protracted suit for re-instate- 
ment in his military rank, of the privileges and honors of which 
he had been deprived by sentence of a court-martial. The origin 
of this celebrated case must be familiar to all students of the 
Civil War. General Porter was charged by General Pope with 
disobedience of orders during the second battle of Bull Run, in 
failing to bring his troops into the engagement, although his 
corps was within sight and sound of the battle, thus imperilling 
the army and being the principal cause of the defeat of the 
Union forces. The court-martial which was convened at General 
Pope's instance sustained these charges, and General Porter was 
cashiered and dismissed from the military service of the United 
States in January, 1863, continuing under the ban of this decision 
for many years. In 1870 he appealed without effect to President 
Grant for a reversal of the sentence of the court-martial. The 
struggle to obtain this reversal continued for years, and brought 
into play all of IMr. Choate's well known legal powers. It was 
finally successful, (largely due to the ability of the plaintiff's 
counsel,) and, in 1886. General Porter was finally restored to the 
army with all disabilities removed. 

Another almost equally celebrated case in which Mr. Choate 
acted as premier counsel was the notable Ccsnola case, in which, 
also, he was successful. But perhaps his most notable achieve- 
ment was his successful attack upon the constitutionality of the 
income tax before the Supreme Court of the United States. 

«-9 



66 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 



Not only did he win his cause, but in doing so he upset all 
legal precedents and succeeded in convincing one of the formerly 
adverse Justices, inducing him to reverse his own decision. 
These are but the most famous of the many important legal 
struggles in which he has been engaged. 

Politically, Mr. Choate is a member of the Republican Party, 
and a very active one, taking a prominent part alike in national, 
State and municipal politics, and exerting his powers particularly 
in the work of reform. He was one of the original Committee 
of Seventy, that earnest body of reformers which came into 
being during the political dominance of Tweed and his ring, and 
which crushed the disdainful "Boss" and for the time being puri- 
fied the political atmosphere of New York City. In bringing 
about this result Mr. Choate and his friend and associate, Charles 
O'Conor, were very largely instrumental. 

In social circles Mr. Choate is highly esteemed. He is 
ready as an after-dinner speaker, rivaling even Chauncey M. 
Depew in this social art, in which he is noted for his pungent 
wit and, if necessary, caustic and sarcastic comments. He is a 
member of the Union League and the New England Society, 
both of which organizations he has served as President. 



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t !PEttIi^axdiStf-Co-l 



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C/A.c^-^ui^ & ^-i^d'f(Siyyy 




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J^^r^ 



RICHARD CROKER 






T^-L}^ 





I HE possibilities that America's free institutions open 
to ability and determination can hardly l)e better 
illustrated than in a resume of the most remark- 
able career of a man who, born amid the most 
humble surroundings, in a foreign land, deprived 
of almost all the advantages of early schooling, forced to be^Mn 
life as a day laborer, has, nevertheless, pursued his course 
upward with a grim resoluteness that can but command admira- 
tion from even his bitterest political enemy. To contemplate 
him as he is renders almost impossible a realization of the im- 
perial sway he exercises over his party associates and of the 
fact that this silent and almost taciturn man's friendship and 
good will are to-day and have been, for many years, absolutely 
indispensable to him who desires political recognition at the 
hands of the Democracy in the City and State of New York. 
Simple and unassuming in his manner, and a born leader, he is 
a striking example of that class of persistent, indomitable, un- 
conquerable men to which Ulysses S. Grant belonged ; and, 
indeed, in many respects, it is to the possession of so many of 
the most marked characteristics of this great General that 
Richard Croker owes his most remarkable success as a political 
factor. About his rise there is something almost weird, but it 
cannot fail to inspire all to look upward and onward or to point 
out the rewards that our system of government has to offer to 
even the poor and friendless foreigner who makes his home on 
America's soil. 

Richard Croker was born in County Cork, Ireland, in 1840, 
and is the son of Eyre C. Croker, a sturdy blacksmith and a 



67 



68 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

veterinary surgeon who, in 1851, finding his family growing and 
his business dwindUng, determined, Hke so many of his fellow 
countrymen, to seek fortune in the newer world and, turning his 
eyes across the western waters, emigrated to the United States. 
The son was eleven years old when the family reached New 
York and made its home on a farm just off of Ninety-ninth 
Street, the site of which now forms a part of Central Park. 
Early in 1852 the Crokers moved to East Twenty-sixth Street 
and later to East Twenty-eighth Street, in which neighborhood 
the son passed the days of his early manhood and laid the foun- 
dation for his future political supremacy. The early education of 
the subject of this review was gotten in the public educational 
institutions of the metropolis, but the vast fund of general in- 
formation he has since acquired has been gleaned in the great 
field of experience. 

When he was but sixteen years of age, and still a stripling, 
Richard Croker was forced to begin his battle with the world, 
taking a position in the Harlem Railway machine shop as a 
chore boy, with a salary of only $2.00 a week. Even before 
attaining his majority, however, he became a political factor and 
soon acquired considerable prominence in municipal affairs. His 
father had been an outspoken Orangeman, but the son, soon 
after reaching manhood, was received into the Catholic Church, 
with which he has since remained connected. The famous Dr. 
McGlynn performed both his baptismal and marriage ceremony, 
the latter of which occurred in 1873, and at which John Kelly, 
the then great power in Tammany Hall, was groomsman. 

Mr. Croker was one of the leaders of the famous revolt 
againt Boss Tweed and, as a candidate of the faction which 
overthrew his regime, was elected an Alderman of the City of 
New York. His course in this office gave him such popularity 
that the post of Coroner subsequently came to him from the 
hands of the people. Soon after the completion of his services 
in this important ofifice, he was appointed Fire Commissioner and 
o-ave to this department a most effective administration. The 
Mayor later appointed him City Chamberlain. 



RICHARD CROKER. 69 

In business Mr. Croker is connected with the well known 
auction firm of Peter F. Meyer & Co., No. 11 1 Broadway, New 
York City. He lives at No. 5 East Seventy-fourth Street, one 
of tlie handsomest residences in the city. No trait of Mr. 
Croker's character is more strongly marked than his love for 
horses. He had one of the finest stables in America, and one 
whicli after successes here he shipped to England. 

Mr. Croker's latest triumph was the election of Robert A. 
Van Wyck as Mayor of Greater New York, at the election held 
in the autumn of 1897, to serve for four years from the succeed- 
ing January. Mr. Croker was one of Mayor Van Wyck's most 
earnest and persistent advocates, and the latter's success in the 
memorable " four-cornered " contest which followed the nomina- 
tion may be regarded as being, in a great degree, a personal 
victory for Mr. Croker, especially since he was opposed not only 
by the Republican and Citizens' tickets, but by a large contin- 
gent of his own party, under the leadership of the younger 
Henry George, who succeeded his father on the ticket, when the 
latter died during the closing days of the campaign. 





im^}>^ 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 




AILROAD manager, statesman and orator not only 
in political campaigns but in the more felicitous 
sphere of after-dinner speaker and about the ban- 
quet board, the subject of this review has won a 
fame that is international. It is but just to say 
of Mr. Depew that few men in this country have acquired equal 
renown in such widely varied fields of thought and action, and 
that the esteem in which he is universally held, both at home 
and abroad, could have no source other than in the possession 
of talents of the most remarkable order. Active in financial, 
political and social circles, he enjoys a popularity such as is pos- 
sessed by but few men in the nation. 

Chauncey Mitchell Depew was born at Peekskill, New 
York, April 23, 1834, in the homestead which has been in the 
possession of his family for over two hundred years. On his 
father's side he descended from Huguenot stock, his ancestors 
having been among the emigrants from France who after the 
revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, came to America and 
settled in Westchester County, naming New Rochelle after La 
Rochelle, France. On his mother's side Mr. Depew descended 
from Roger Sherman, the signer of the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence and grand-uncle of Mr. Depew's mother, Martha Mitchell, 
daughter of Chauncey R. Mitchell. Late in the Seventeenth 
Century the family settled in Peekskill, and purchased the farm 
where the old homestead stands, and which is still the property 
of Mr. Depew. 

As a boy, Mr. Depew went to school in his native village, 
and at the age of eighteen entered Yale, graduating in 1856. 

70 



/^ 




a^UJyUZJl.^ 




OyC 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 71 

Determining on the law as a profession, he went into the office 
of William Nelson, in Peekskill, and, in 1858, was admitted to 
the Bar. In 1859 he began practice, but, though he was a good 
worker, his attention was soon drawn off by the political situa- 
tion, and he took the stump during the Lincoln campaign and 
did efTectivc work. In the following year Mr. Depew ran for the 
Assembly, and succeeded in obtaining an election in a Demo- 
cratic -district by a majority of 259. In 1862 he was re-elected, 
and during this session was appointed Chairman of the Commit- 
tee on Ways and Means. In 1863 the Republican Party of New 
York nominated Mr. Depew for Secretary of State, and through- 
out six weeks of the campaign which followed he spoke twice 
a day and was elected by a majority of 30,000. During the be- 
ginning of President Johnson's occupancy of the Presidential 
chair Mr. Depew was offered the position of Minister to Japan, 
but declined the post after having had the commission in his 
possession for a month. 

Mr. Depew had by this time about decided to go out of 
politics and, in 1S66, the offer of the position of Attorney for 
the New York and Harlem Railroad Company decided liim in 
this conclusion. In 1869 occurred the important consolidation of 
the New York Central Avith the New York and Harlem Railroad, 
when Mr. Depew was appointed Counsel of the new organiza- 
tion, which was called the New York Central and Hudson River 
Railroad Company. Ten years after his entrance into the posi- 
tion as Attorney for a single line, he was hoIding^ the office of 
General Counsel of all roads, while he was a Director in the 
Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, Michigan Central, Chicago 
and Northwestern, St. Paul and Omaha, West Shore and Nickel 
Plate. 

In the Senatorial contest tliat followed the resignation of 
Senators Conkling and Piatt, Mr. Depew was a prominent candi- 
didatc, but finally withdrew in the interests of party harmony 
and broke one of the most memorable deadlocks in the history 
of the State. 

In 1882 Mr. Depew was made Second Vice-President of the 



72 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

New York Central road, and continued to hold that position 
until 1885, when he was raised to the Presidency, thus becom- 
ing the executive head of one of the greatest railroad corpo- 
rations in the world. Mr. Depew held this post until 1898, 
when, on the consolidation of the roads comprising the Vander- 
bilt system, he resigned to assume the most responsible post in 
the new organization. 

Before the Convention of the Republican Party at Chicago, 
in 1888, Mr. Depew was a prominent candidate for the Presi- 
dency. On the first ballot he received 99 votes to Harrison's 80, 
Sherman leading with 229. On the second ballot Harrison had 
gained 1 1 votes and Depew held his own. On the third ballot a 
push was made for Alger, and Mr. Depew dropped 8 votes. It 
being evident that the nomination was not possible, under the 
existing conditions, as Mr. Depew concentrated the full strength 
of his side, he withdrew his name as a candidate, whereupon the 
larger part of the New York vote went for Harrison, and, an 
adjournment taking place over Sunday, the latter was nominated 
on the Monday following It will thus be seen that in the inter- 
est of the party Mr. Depew had practically given up the Sena- 
torship of the State of New York and an excellent chance for 
the Presidency of the United States. 

Mr. Depew has been President of the Union League Club 
of New York and of the Yale Alumni Association of the city, 
a member of the New York Chamber of Commerce, a Director 
of the Union Trust Company of New York, of the Western 
Union Telegraph Company, of the Equitable Life Assurance 
Society, and of St. Luke's Hospital, in addition to the many 
important posts previously recorded. 

Mr. Depew was married, on November 9, 1871, to Alice 
Hegeman. 




-S>i^ .^c^ AHKi^'''''* * 





F the distinguished men who now make New York 
their home few have had more conspicuous 
careers than has Major-General Gkenville Mellen 
Dodge, born in Putnamville, Danvers, Massa- 
chusetts, April 12, 1 83 1. His father was Sylvanus 
Dodge and his mother was Julia T. Phillips. The son's opportu- 
nities for early education were limited, but he worked successively 
on a farm and at gardening, finally becoming a clerk in a general 
store. During the winter of 1845-1846 he attended Durham 
Academy, New Hampshire, and in the autumn of the latter 
year entered Norwich University, Vermont, in the military and 
scientific course, graduating as a civil engineer in 1850, and the 
following year from Captain Partridge's Military School at Nor- 
wich, in the scientific course. Soon after he located at Peru, 
Illinois, as a land surveyor, before long entering the Engineer 
Corps of the Illinois Central Railroad, and later going to the 
Chicago and Rock Island. While here he made the survey of 
the Mississippi and Missouri River Railroad from Davenport, 
Iowa, to Council Bluffs, and was Assistant Engineer during the 
construction of the road from Davenport to Iowa City. The 
bill authorizing the construction of the Pacific Railway was 
largely made on the basis of his surveys. In 1854 he removed 
to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and engaged in mercantile pursuits, 
sending the first train through to Denver, and opening one of 
the earliest mercantile houses in Colorado. In Council Bluffs he 
founded the banking house of Baldwin & Dodge, later merged 
into the Pacific National Bank, of which he became President. 
In 1856 he organized and equipped the Council Bluffs Guards 

i-io 73 



74 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

and was elected Captain. He tendered its services to the Gov- 
ernor of Iowa in April, 1861. The offer was declined, however, 
as the Governor deemed it unsafe to withdraw troops from the 
western border of the State. When the Fourth Iowa Infantry 
was organized the company joined that regiment, and, in the 
spring of 1861, the Governor appointed Captain Dodge upon his 
staff, sending him to Washington to secure supplies which the 
Congressional delegation had been unable to obtain. The War 
Department, recognizing his ability, offered him a Captaincy in 
the regular army, but he declined ; whereupon the Secretary re- 
quested the Governor to make Captain Dodge Colonel of an 
Iowa regiment. Governor Kirkwood immediately put him in 
command of the Fourth Iowa Infantry, and in two weeks Col- 
onel Dodge was leading it against the rebels in Northern Mis- 
souri. His desperate courage at Pea Ridge won him a promotion 
to Brigadier-General, and, his distinguished services continuing, 
Grant, after the fall of Vicksburg, requested that General Dodge 
be promoted to the rank of Major-General, which was promptly 
done. 

A thorough review of General Dodge's services in the Re- 
bellion, both as a line and engineer officer, would extend far 
beyond the limits at our command, but he was certainly among 
the most distinguished officers in the Union Army, and was 
several times seriously wounded. 

In 1865 General Dodge was assigned to the command of 
the United States forces in Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Utah, 
Montana and Dakota, and took command of these troops, fighting 
in the Indian campaigns, and following the hostile tribes until 
they were made to sue for peace. Then, at his urgent request, 
he was relieved of his command and his resignation was ac- 
cepted. In the bill for placing a certain number of generals of 
volunteers in the regular army for life, General Grant selected 
General Dodge as the head of the list of Major-Generals of 
volunteers to be made Major-Generals in the regular army. 

In July, 1866, the Fifth Congressional District of Iowa 
elected General Dodge to Congress. The honor was reluctantly 



GRENVILLE M. DODGE. 75 

accepted, but General Dodge was quickly recognized in the 
halls of legislation as authority on all matters relating to mili- 
tary subjects. 

Few men have been more active in the railway world than 
has General Dodge, among the railway and construction compa- 
nies with which he has been connected being the following : The 
California and Te.xas Railway Construction Company, Chief En- 
gineer ; Union Pacific Railway Company, Director ; Texas and 
Pacific Railway Company, Chief Engineer ; Pacific Railway Im- 
provement Company, American Railway Improvement Company, 
International Railway Improvement Company, Missouri, Kansas 
and Texas Railway Company, President ; Texas and Colorado 
Railroad Construction Company, Oriental Construction Company, 
President ; Fort Worth and Denver City Railway Company, 
Director and Vice-President ; St. Louis, Des Moines and North- 
ern Railway Company, President ; Des Moines Union Railway 
Company, President ; Colorado and Texas Railway Construction 
Company, Iron Steamboat Company, Director ; Denver, Texas 
and Fort Worth Railway Company, President ; Des Moines and 
Northern Railway Company, President ; Wichita Valley Railway 
Company, Director; Union Pacific, Denver and Gulf Railway 
Company, President ; besides being connected with a number of 
the most prominent industrial corporations in the country. 

General Dodge was married May 29, 1854, at Salem, Mas- 
sachusetts, to Miss Annie Brown, of Peru, Illinois. Of this 
marriage there are three children. 






ILAS BELDEN DUTCHER was born in Spring- 
field, Otsego County, New York, July 12, 1829, 
and traces his progenitors on both sides of the 
ancestral house to the earliest settlers in the Prov- 
ince. He is the son of Parcefor Carr Dutcher, 
whose parents were John Dutcher and Silvey Beardsley, the 
latter descended from William Beardsley, born at Stratford, Eng- 
land, in 1605, and came to this country in 1635, settling in Strat- 
ford, Connecticut, in 1639. His paternal great-grandparents were 
Gabriel Dutcher and Elizabeth Knickerbocker, the latter a grand- 
daughter of Harman Janse Van Wye Knickerbocker, of Dutchess 
County, New York. Gabriel Dutcher's parents were Ruloff 
Dutcher and Jannettie Brussy, who came from Holland towards 
the close of the Seventeenth Century. Silas B. Dutcher's mother 
was Johanna Low Frink, daughter of Stephen Frink and Ann 
Low, the parents of the latter of whom were Captain Peter Low, 
an officer in the Continental Army, and Johanna Vanderveer, a 
daughter of Ferdinand Vanderveer and Rebecca Ten Eyck, the 
former a descendant of Cornelius Janse Vanderveer, who came to 
this country from Alckmaar, Holland, in the ship "Otter," in 
February, 1659, and settled in Flatbush, Kings County, New 
York. Rebecca Ten Eyck was a descendant of Conrad Ten 
Eyck, who came from Amsterdam, Holland, to New York in 
1650, and owned what is now Coenties Slip, New York City. 

The early boyhood of our subject was spent in the neighbor- 
ing public schools, with a term's schooling at Cazenovia Semi- 
nary. Between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two he taught 
school during the winter and worked on his father's farm sum- 



76 



f?^ 




J^ /]. ^^IcZi'-^li^c^ .^ 



SILAS B. BUTCHER. 77 

mers. For the four years between 1851 and 1855 he was 
engaged in the construction and operation of the railroad from 
Elmira to Niagara Falls, in the latter year coming to New York 
and engaging in the mercantile business, in which he continued 
until 1868. In 1859 Mr. Dutcher was made a charter Trustee 
of the Union Dime Savings Institution, of which he was Presi- 
dent from 1886 until 1891, and in which he still holds a Trus- 
teeship. In 1 89 1 Mr. Dutcher was invited to the Presidency 
of the Hamilton Trust Company, a position which he still holds. 
For the past twenty years he has been a Director in the Metro- 
politan Life Insurance Company. He is President of the Ram- 
apo Water Company, a Director in the National Shoe and 
Leather Bank, Manhattan Fire Insurance, Garfield Safe Deposit, 
Nassau Electric Railway, German-American Real Estate Title 
Guarantee, and Kings County Electric Light and Power compa- 
nies, and Treasurer of the Columbia Mutual Building and Loan 
Association. 

Mr. Dutcher has been active in political life for forty years. 
He was a Whig from 1850 until 1855, but allied himself with the 
Republican party at its organization. He was Supervisor of the 
County of New York in i860 and 1861 ; was appointed first by 
Hugh McCullough, Secretary of the Treasury, and afterwards by 
President Grant, Supervisor of Internal Revenue from 1868 to 
1872, in which latter year President Grant made him United 
States Pension Agent, a post he held until 1876, when he re- 
signed to accept an important position with the Metropolitan Life 
Insurance Company. The following year President Grant made 
him United States Appraiser of the Port of New York, the 
duties of which he fulfilled until 1880, when he was appointed 
by Governor A. B. Cornell Superintendent of Public Works for 
the State of New York, retiring in 1883. Governor Levi P. 
Morton made him a member of the Charter Commission which 
framed the charter of Greater New York, and Governor Frank 
S. Black appointed him a Manager of the Long Island State 
Hospital. What makes these positions doubly honorable is the 
fact that Mr. Dutcher had never been an applicant for any of these 



78 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

offices. In 1858 and 1859 he was President of the Young Men's 
Republican Committee of New York City, in the following year 
accepting the Presidency of the Wide-Awake Organization in the 
City of New York. He removed to Brooklyn in 1861, and was 
Chairman of the Kings County Republican Committee for four 
years and of the Republican Executive Committee of the State 
in 1876, besides holding membership in the Republican State 
Committee for many years, and being a Delegate to several 
Republican national conventions and an active orator for the 
Whig and Republican parties in every Presidential campaign 
from 1848 until 1888. 

From the day on which he became a resident of Brooklyn 
he was one of the most earnest and persistent advocates of the 
consolidation of the various boroughs that now form the great 
City of New York, and it was largely owing to Mr. Dutcher's 
efiforts that this plan was eventually consummated. 

Mr. Dutcher is a member of the Reformed (Dutch) Church; 
has been particularly active in Sunday-school work and for ten 
years was Superintendent of the Twelfth Street Reformed Church 
Sunday-school. He is Treasurer of the Brooklyn City Bible 
Society, and a Manager of the Brooklyn Society for Improving 
the Condition of the Poor. Mr. Dutcher holds membership in 
the Hamilton, Aurora Grata and Brooklyn clubs and in the 
Masonic fraternity, having been President of the Association of 
Brooklyn Masonic Veterans during the year 1896. He was mar- 
ried to Rebecca J. Alwaise February 10, 1859. ^^s. Dutcher is 
a descendant of John Alwaise, a French Huguenot, who came 
to Philadelphia in 1740. Her grandmother was a descendant of 
John Bishop, who came from England in 1645 and settled at 
Woodbridge, New Jersey. They have six children, De Witt P., 
Edith May, Elsie Rebecca, Malcolm B., Jessie Ruth and Eva 
Olive. 





ILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS, eminent as a 
lawyer and statesman, is a native of Boston, in 
which city he was born on the 6th day of Febru- 
ary, 1818. His father, Jeremiah Evarts, was a 
well known philanthropist of Massachusetts, the 
editor of The Panoplist^ a religious monthly, and for many years 
was Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for For- 
eign Missions. The son was educated at Yale, where he soon 
became noted for his close application to his studies, particularly 
to the classics, which always had a great fascination for his mind. 
He graduated from this famous institution in 1837, and in the 
following year entered Harvard Law School. After a year's 
study here he came to the City of New York, where he remained 
for two years as a student in the office of Daniel Lord, after 
which he was admitted to the Bar. 

Shortly afterwards he entered the legal firm of J. Prescott 
Hall and quickly gained a wide reputation for unusual ability, 
great industry and much modesty. He was ever earnest and 
conscientious in the preparation of cases, and was not long in 
securing a position among the rising men of the Bar. In 1849, 
when Mr. Hall was made United States Attorney-General, Mr. 
Evarts acted as his Deputy, and continued to fill this important 
position till the winter of 1852-1853. In this post he took part 
in many important trials, gaining a high reputation for his con- 
duct of the case growing out of the "Cleopatra" expedition, a suit 
concerning a vessel which had been stopped when preparing to 
sail for an invasion of Cuba. This trial he conducted with much 
energy and ability; his able management of the Lemmon slave 



79 



8o REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

case also eliciting admiration. Mr. Lemmon had landed in New 
York with some slaves, whom he proposed to take to Texas. 
Their release was demanded, and Mr. Evarts, as their principal 
counsel, was successful in gaining for them their freedom. 

In i860 he became prominent in the political world by his 
advocacy of the name of William H. Seward before the Repub- 
lican National Convention of that year as a candidate for the 
Presidency of the United States. In 1861 Mr. Evarts entered 
into a contest in the New York Legislature for the United 
States Senatorship, Horace Greeley being his opponent. The 
contest was long continued, and finally ended in the withdrawal 
of Mr. Evarts, and the election of Ira Harris. In 1862 he con- 
ducted before the Supreme Court of the United States, on the 
side of the government, a case concerning the treatment of cap- 
tured vessels as maritime prizes. 

We have named but a few of the important suits at law in 
which Mr. Evarts took part. But his greatest opportunity for 
distinction took place in 1868, on the occasion of the impeach- 
ment trial of President Johnson, in which Mr. Evarts was retained 
as the principal counsel of the defendant in this greatest of 
American cases. In the conduct of this most important trial in 
the history of the nation, he displayed the greatest power and 
sagacity, while his speech in defence of the Executive was a 
masterpiece of learning, research, satire and eloquence, such as 
has been rarely equalled in the history of jurisprudence. Presi- 
dent Johnson rewarded him for his services in securing his 
acquittal by appointing him Attorney-General of the United 
States, which post he filled till the end of the administration. 

In 1871 he became concerned in another affair of world-wide 
import, being appointed by President Grant one of the commis- 
sioners at the Geneva arbitration of the "Alabama Claims." His 
able effort here is part of the history of our country. His pre- 
sentation of the case for the United States was a masterpiece of 
clear exposition and apt illustration. In 1874-1875 he acted as 
senior counsel for Henry Ward Beecher in the famous Beecher- 
Tilton libel suit. His summing up of the case for the defence 



WILLIAM M. EVARTS. 8 1 

in this trial was remarkable for the endurance he displayed for 
one of his age. It occupied eight days, at the end of which 
time he appeared still fresh and vigorous, while most of the oth- 
ers concerned in the case seemed worn out. In 1877 Mr. Evarts 
was the advocate of the Republican Party before the Electoral 
Commission whose verdict placed Gen. Rutherford B. Hayes in 
the Presidential chair. In forming his cabinet the new President 
selected Mr. Evarts as his Secretary of State. In this high 
office he exhibited the same marked ability that has ever distin- 
guished his career, raising the standard of the consular service, 
and originating the very useful series of consular reports which 
have ever since been maintained by the Department. In 1881 he 
was sent to Paris as a Delegate to the International Monetary 
Conference and, in 1885, became a member of the Senate of the 
United States. Mr. Evarts had a high reputation for his powers 
as an after-dinner speaker, in which his display of humor and 
pleasant satire was unusually fine, while as an orator, whether 
before Bench, jury, or the Senate of the United States, his deep 
research and mastery of diction gave him always an attentive 
and appreciative audience. On the expiration of his Senatorial 
term Mr. Evarts retired to private life, and is now living in 
retirement, in very feeble health. 









AWYER and faithful public servant, there is much 
in the career of Ashbel P. Fitch to entitle him 
to rank among the prominent and progressive 
citizens of the Empire Commonwealth. A native 
of the State and a descendant of one of the 
oldest and most distinguished of American families, he has won 
success in his chosen professsion and has been the recipient of 
many honors at the hands of his fellow townsmen, who long ago 
learned to appreciate his worth and sterling integrity. In the 
halls of national legislation and as the guardian of the public 
funds he has been faithful and efficient, winning high commenda- 
tion and universal respect. 

Ashbel Parmelee Fitch was born in Mooers, Clinton 
County, New York, on the 8th day of October, 1848. Few fami- 
lies in this country can boast of clearer Puritan parentage than 
can the subject of this review, who is the seventh in line of des- 
cent from Rev. James Fitch, a noted minister of the gospel, who 
left his home in Essex, England, in 1638, and settling in this 
country, became one of the most noted divines in the colonies. 
From him is descended a family that has contributed to America 
many of her most public-spirited and prominent men, among 
whom few are better known than Ashbel P. Fitch. Edward 
Fitch, the father of the subject of this sketch, was a dis- 
tinguished lawyer of New York City, where he practiced his 
profession with pronounced success. 

The son attended the public schools of the metropolis, and 
there early exhibited those qualities of application and penetration 
which have won him such distinguished success in political and 



82 



ASHBEL P. FITCH. 83 

professional life. After a course in these excellent institutions, 
Ashbcl P. Fitch was entered at Williston Seminary, East Hamp- 
ton, Massachusetts, whence he went to Europe, completing his 
studies at the universities of Jena and Berlin. His classical and 
scientific course concluded in these famed institutions, he returned 
to this country and, following in the footsteps of his distinguished 
father, began the study of law at Columbia Law School, from 
which he was graduated in 1869, being admitted to the Bar in 
the same year. 

Until the year 1886 Mr. l""itch devoted himself almost ex- 
clusively to the practice of his profession. Having in the mean- 
time taken such an interest in public affairs as became a good 
citizen, in that year, however, he was tendered and accepted the 
nomination by the Republican Party as Member of Congress 
from the Thirteenth New York District. This he did, because 
the Democratic nominee. Gen. Egbert L. Viele, was an avowed 
protectionist. Mr. Fitch, although a Republican, had no sym- 
pathy with extreme protection and was thoroughly liberal in his 
views on tariff reform. After a spirited canvass he was elected by 
a majority of 2,672, notwithstanding the fact that in 1884 his op- 
ponent had won his election by a majority of 655. In Congress 
Mr. Fitch voted for the Mills tariff bill. 

In 1888, his course while in the national legislature meeting 
with the approval of his constituents, he was re-elected by a ma- 
jority of 9,000, while in the election of 1890 he rolled up the 
stupendous sum of 16,000 votes more than were recorded for his 
opponent. 

In the autumn of 1893 Mr. I'^itch was elected Comptroller of 
the City of New York and served in this capacity until the ist 
day of January, 1898. In the autumn of 1897 Mr. Fitch ac- 
cepted the nomination of the Republican County Committee for 
Comptroller, but it was as a gold Democrat and not as a Re- 
publican that he was nominated and went before the people. 

During his term as Comptroller, Mr. Fitch retained his legal 
practice, and was able to devote a considerable portion of his 
time to the cases entrusted to him by his many clients, and since 



84 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

his return to active practice his business has increased to such an 
extent that, although he has been out of office but a few months, it 
has been found necessary to secure new and greatly enlarged quarters 
in the Mutual Life Building. As attorney, Mr. Fitch takes an 
exceptionally high rank. His knowledge of the law is profound, 
and his extended connections with large financial interests makes 
his advice of great value and much sought. Furthermore, his 
specialties are such as to give him unusual prominence in the 
legal fraternity. Mr. Fitch is an admirable speaker, clear, con- 
cise and convincing, and during the years in which he has been 
in New York City, despite the fact that much of his time has 
been demanded by the prominent public positions which have 
come to him, he has gathered about him one of the most satis- 
factory practices enjoyed by any attorney at the Bar. 

In social circles Mr. Fitch is as widely known and as highly 
esteemed as in his profession or in the political world, and his 
charming traits and genial disposition have gained for him many 
friends not only in the organizations with which he is connected 
but throughout the country. He is a member of the St. Nicho- 
las Club, the Metropolitan Club, the Arion and Liederkranz so- 
cieties, the New England Society and the Sons of the Revolu- 
tion. Mr. Fitch is also a Governor of the Manhattan Club, one 
of the best known social organizations of the city. 



m 



u 



•^■^'^J;Jg2^^^^J*^gJ^g^J^^|g^-^ 







^^KPjnrij/Xj /rJ^I^. 





N NO walk of life does the "survival of the 
fittest" hold to greater force than in the practice 
of the profession of law. The ever-watchful public 
lets not ability go unrecognized ; no true workers 
toil in vain, and the lawyer who guards his clients' 
interests as his own finds ample compensation in a growing patron- 
age and increasing public esteem. To succeed in this most 
exacting of professions is to have such abundant abilities that, 
with their possession, equal fame could doubtless be won in any 
field of commercial or professional life, and to achieve success as 
a corporation attorney, especially, denotes the possession not only 
of the keen analytical instinct of the true lawyer, but of those 
peculiar qualities of mind that are necessary to activity in com- 
mercial circles. The New York Bar has many men whose success 
proves their ability, whose growing practices are the just rewards 
of earnest effort ; but of those who have won the respectful 
recognition of Bench and brother barristers, few have been more 
deserving than Theodore Fitch, the subject of this review. 

Theodore Fitch was born in Franklin, Delaware County, 
New York, on tRe 30th day of March, 1844. He is the son of 
the Rev. Silas Fitch (Wesleyan, 1838) and Mary A. White, both 
of whom are descendants from early settlers in the colony of 
Connecticut, the paternal line being of Norwalk ancestry, and the 
maternal of Stamford. After receiving the fundamental founda- 
tion of an education in the minor institutions of his native State, 
Mr. Fitch was prepared for college at the academies in Pough- 
keepsie and Middletown, New York, where he early displayed 
those admirable traits as a student that may really be said to be 
the secret of his success in later life. 



85 



86 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

After pursuing a course in the lesser institutions of learning, 
Mr. Fitch entered Yale College, from which he was graduated 
in 1864. His father was at that time Principal of Delaware 
Academy, located at Delhi, Delaware County, New York, and 
the young graduate began his career as a teacher of Latin, 
Greek and mathematics in the institution over which his father 
presided, at the same time studying law with Honorable William 
Murray, of Delhi, who was then County Judge and subsequently 
a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. 

After duly pursuing his studies under this eminent tutor, Mr. 
Fitch was admitted to the Bar at Binghamton, New York, in 
May, 1867, and in the autumn of the same year commenced the 
practice of law on his own account at Yonkers, which city 
has since remained his residence, although he later opened a law 
of^ce in New York City, and, since 1883, in partnership with 
his brother, Silas Hedding Fitch, (Wesleyan, 1877) under the 
firm name of T. & S. H. Fitch, he has had his office in that 
city exclusively. His practice begun, his talents early attracted 
attention to himself, and he quickly acquired high standing at the 
Westchester Bar, and soon began to enjoy a most successful 
practice, the special departments of corporation and real estate law 
occupying the greater part of his attention. 

From 1876 until 1883 he was City Attorney of Yonkers, 
serving three terms, and during that time won every case for the 
city, with a single exception, and in this he was virtually success- 
ful, as he greatly diminished the claim against the city, bringing 
the verdict down to a very small amount. Among his interesting 
cases were The People ex rel. Manhattan Savings Institution vs. 
Otis, Mayor (90 New York, 48), in which it was held that the 
act requiring the city to re-issue bonds to the Bank in place of 
those stolen was unconstitutional ; Hobbs vs. City of Yonkers, 
a suit for back fees which had been relinquished by the plaintiff 
while a candidate for office as an inducement to his election as 
City Treasurer ; Theall vs. City of Yonkers, involving the boun- 
dary between the Township of Yonkers and Eastchester ; the 
suit, several times in the Court of Appeals, of Levi P. Rose, to 



THEODORE FITCH. 



87 



regain title to Getty Square, Yonkers, on the ground of breach 
of the condition in the original grant through encroachment of 
the Radford Building upon the Square ; and the litigations for 
several years b)- Charles E. Skinner over the Smith Moquette 
Loom Company, in which, in association with Joseph II. Choate 
and Francis N. Bangs, he successfully represented the Alex. 
Smith & Sons Carpet Company and its principal stockholders. 

Mr. Fitch deserves all the success he has won, and his prom- 
inence is not confined to New York State, extending as it does 
throughout the neighboring Commonwealths, where he is recognized 
as a man of thorough zeal in his profession, and one possessing 
an admirable strength of purpose. Indeed, his reputation is that 
of the highest character and most sterling worth, traits which 
have earned for him many encomiums and have brought him 
success as a lawyer, prominence in citizenship and happiness in 
home life. 

On the 4th of February, 1869, IMr. Fitch married Catherine 
Hawley Coe, daughter of Rev. Samuel Goodrich Coe (Yale, 
1838) and Grace Ingersoll Hawley, likewise of early Connec- 
ticut ancestry. 






^^^^HE subject of this sketch is essentially a lawyer, 
inheriting from a family which have been lawyers 
for generations the dominant qualities of his char- 
acter. It is safe to say that two-thirds of his life 
have been spent in the court-room, first as a ste- 
nographic court reporter, a position from which so many useful 
men have been graduated to prominence, and then from his early 
manhood as a practitioner of the law. He is one of those ear- 
nest, nervous, energetic men, who, capable of indefatigable labor 
and infinite patience, make the Bar of New York distinctive 
among the learned professions. An index to his character is 
found in a statement he has had repeated occasion to make, to 
the effect that he is a total abstainer from drink from business 
principles alone, " Because," said he, " I have discovered that that 
fact, once known in New York, is by itself a guaranty of success 
at the Bar." 

Samuel Major Gardenhire was born at Fayette, Missouri, 
on the 23d day of November, 1855. His father was James B, 
Gardenhire, a native of Tennessee who settled in Missouri in the 
forties. He was an original abolitionist, an able lawyer, one of 
the most eloquent orators in the State, and was nominated by 
his party for Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court in 1846 ; was 
Attorney-General of the State in 1852, and the first Republican 
nominee for Governor of Missouri. President Lincoln appointed 
him United States Solicitor of Claims at Washington in i860, 
but he soon resigned the position in order to form a co-partner- 
ship with Montgomery Blair. He died in 1862. The maiden 
name of the mother of the subject of this review was Sarah 



88 



b\- :tse- 



'n; r.ci . - l"; < ■' . 



SAMUEL M. GARDENHIRE. 89 

Major. She was Judge Gardenhire's third wife and the daughter 
of Samuel C. Major, of Howard County, Missouri, one of the 
oldest settlers in the State, and a member of a family that was 
among the most prominent and influential in their section. 

The early years of Mr. Gardenhire were spent in Jefferson 
City, Missouri, in whose excellent educational institutions he laid 
the foundation for that great fund of general knowledge which 
he now possesses. Passing from these schools he entered Central 
College, then the only higher educational institution in the State 
of Missouri under the control of the Methodist Church. After 
leaving school, where he had, in connection with his curriculum, 
made himself an adept at shorthand writing, he went to Ten- 
nessee and read law with his uncle. Judge E. L. Gardenhire, of 
Sparta, in whose office at that time was Hon. Benton McMillan, 
since so prominent in the National Congress. Mr. Gardenhire 
remained for two years in Tennessee, and after a course at the 
.Lebanon Law School, engaged in the business of court reporting. 
He was subsequently admitted to practice law in Tennessee, but 
went to St. Louis, where he completed a course at the St. Louis 
Law School, and then entered the office of Senator John B. Hen- 
derson, where he remained at the profession of the law for a 
period of five years. In 1880 Mr. Gardenhire's health began to 
fail as a result of his arduous labors and he was advised to 
locate at Denver, Colorado. He left St. Louis with that end in 
view, but, attracted by the dry climate of Kansas, and the beauty 
of the Capital City, settled at Topeka, in that State, where he 
formed a co-partnership with Hon. A. B. Jetmore, then, as now, 
one of the ablest lawyers and foremost public men in the Central 
Mississippi Valley. 

Like his eminent father, Mr. Gardenhire has always been an 
earnest and active Republican, and from the day of his settling 
in Kansas he defended the interests of that party in every cam- 
paign until his departure from the State and his coming to New 
York, where he settled in 1895. In J890 he was elected Clerk 
of the Circuit and District Courts, at Toptka, and later served 
the State Capital District in the Legislature. 



go REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

Early in his professional career as a lawyer Mr. Gardenhire 
began to vary the severe labors of his profession with work of a 
literary character. From his childhood he has been an insatiate 
reader, and under a nom-de-plume published his first novel, " The 
Hebrew Talisman," in 1875, since which time, as a labor of love, 
and as a matter of recreation in the hours of leisure, he has 
published a novel about every two years, besides contributing 
extensively to the leading magazines and other publications 
of the country. 

Two years after coming to New York, Mr. Gardenhire asso- 
ciated himself in the practice of his profession with Judge Samuel 
W. Vandivert, one of the ablest lawyers of the West, and the 
firm of Gardenhire & Vandivert has already established a sub- 
stantial position among the corporation lawyers of the city. 







1 



<:^rs^^cl^<fJV 






ERCANTILE, political and legislative life have 
each claimed a portion of the attention of Fred- 
erick S. Gibbs, of whose conspicuous career this 
sketch is written. As Manager of a great corpo- 
ration, as the representative of his party in its 
councils, and as a capable member of the State legislative body, 
he has fulfilled the duties that have fallen to him with fidelity 
and honor, and won the esteem of the people in city, State and 
nation ; and, with judgment based upon the past, it is but rea- 
sonable to expect that the future will bring to him renewed and 
even higher honors. 

Frederick Sev.mour Gibbs was born in Seneca Falls, New 
York, March 22, 1845. He is the son of Lucius S. and Jane 
Wilson Gibbs. His father's family is of English descent, and for 
a hundred years was one of the most prominent in Connecticut. 
Spencer Gibbs, the great-grandfather, was a sergeant in the Con- 
tinental Army. Another branch of the family has long been 
prominent in South Carolina. Jane Wilson Gibbs is a native of 
Ogdensburg, New York, and, although of Canadian parentage, 
traces her ancestry through a long line of the most energetic 
people of Scotland. 

Until he was thirteen the boyhood of Mr. Gibbs was spent 
in the public schools of Seneca Falls. Leaving school, he was 
office boy of Cowing & Company, manufacturers of pumps, and 
remained with them until 1862, when he entered the army in 
Company A of the One Hundred and Forty-eighth New York 
Volunteers, serving until the cessation of hostilities, and being 
mustered out at Elmira, June 30, 1865. Although he entered the 



91 



92 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

army as a private, he rose from the ranks to Corporal in Sep- 
tember, 1862; Sergeant in 1863; Sergeant-Major in 1864; Second 
Lieutenant in 1865, and was brevetted First Lieutenant "for gal- 
lant and meritorious services." During the battle of Cold Har- 
bor, on June 3, 1864, Mr. Gibbs received a severe gunshot wound 
in the face, and, while with the Army of the Potomac, before 
Petersburg, on April 2, 1865, he was again wounded, this time in 
the leg by a piece of shell. Notwithstanding, he remained with 
his regiment and witnessed the surrender of Lee. 

The war over, Mr. Gibbs re-entered the employ of Cowing & 
Company as a shipping clerk, remaining with them until May, 
1869, when he came to New York City, as manager of their 
branch warehouse. He remained in charge of their extensive 
business here until January i, 1875, when he accepted the post 
of manager for New York City of the Goulds Manufacturing 
Company, pump makers, also of Seneca Falls, and remained at 
the head of their business until the formation of the Metropolitan 
Water Company, of which he has since been Managing Director, 
with offices at No. i Madison Avenue. 

But it is in the world of political life that Mr. Gibbs has 
most won the esteem of the people. Since 1882 he has been a 
Delegate to every New York State and New York County Con- 
vention of the Republican Party, as well as to the first City 
Convention of Greater New York. Since 1883 he has been a 
member of the Republican County Committee from his Assembly 
District, and is now (1898) a member of the Committee on Or- 
ganization of the Republican County Committee. He was a 
Delegate to the National Republican conventions of 1888, 1892 
and 1896, and now represents New York in the Republican 
National Committee. 

The Eighth New York District, in 1883, elected Mr. Gibbs 
to the State Senate, and during the sessions of 1884 and 1885 
he took a prominent place in formulating the legislation of the 
cities, and as a member of the Committee on Grievances. In 
1884 the Republican Party nominated him as its candidate for 
Mayor of New York City, but in the "three-cornered" contest 



FREDERICK S. GIBBS. 93 

he, along with Hugh J. Grant, was defeated for Mayor by Wil- 
liam R. Grace. In 18S9 and again in 1890 Mr. Gibbs repre- 
sented the Thirteenth Assembly District of New York in the 
State Assembly, and, on account of his able services along sim- 
ilar lines while in the State Senate, was made Chairman of the 
Committee on Public Health and a member of the committees 
on General Laws and Affairs of Cities. 

Many of the most important measures now on the statute 
books of the State owe their introduction and passage to the 
efforts of Mr. Gibbs, the following being especially wortliy of 
note: The law enacted in 1884 providing for regulating of the 
payment of pensions to members of the Police and Fire depart- 
ments of New York City ; the law making the offices of Comp- 
troller of New York City and President of the Board of Alder- 
men elective ; the measure providing for the creation of the 
original Commission to inquire respecting the practicability of 
the creation of "Greater" New York; and the measure provid- 
ing for the investigation of the departments of the City Govern- 
ment of New York by members of the Senate. Of the Committee 
of Investigation created under the measure last mentioned Mr. 
Gibbs was Chairman, as he was also of a committee created to 
investigate the Department of Public Works ; and from the find- 
ings of these committees he prepared, introduced and secured the 
passage of the numerous remedial bills to abolish abuses and 
supply deficiencies in connection with the several departments of 
the Government of the City of New York. 




Vp*^ HERMAN HAUPT 




t-^nsa 




ERMAN HAUPT was born in Philadelphia on 
March 26, 181 7, and was appointed cadet at West 
Point by President Jackson in 1831, graduating in 
1835, in the class with General Meade, and being 
commissioned Second Lieutenant, United States 
Army. He resigned, in the fall of 1835, to accept a position in the 
corps of H. R. Campbell, in Philadelphia, as Assistant Engineer. 
He was appointed Principal Assistant Engineer in the service of 
Pennsylvania, in 1836, and located the Gettysburg Railroad across 
South Mountain. 

In 1838 he married Anna Cecelia, daughter of Rev. Benjamin 
Keller, and they have had eleven children, eight of whom, six sons 
and two daughters, survive. One of the sons, Prof. Lewis M. 
Haupt, has acquired an international reputation and was appointed 
one of the three United States Commissioners on the Nicaragua 
Canal. Two sons are in the ministry. 

The subject of this sketch was Principal Assistant Engineer 
on the York and Wrightsville Railroad in 1840, at which time he 
commenced investigations on the strength of timber and the mag- 
nitude and distribution of strains in bridges and other trusses. 
These investigations were continued for several years and resulted 
in the publication, in 1852, of "The General Theory of Bridge 
Construction," a work which at once revolutionized the art, elicited 
high commendation from Robert Stevenson and his associates in 
England, was universally adopted as a text book in engineering 
technical schools and furnished the means of calculating strain 
sheets of bridges which had never before been attempted, and 
without which the great structures of modern times would have 



94 





<^-7-n^-T^-7 



:A5 



HERMAN HAUPT. 95 

been impossible. He was Professor of Civil Enginering and 
Mathematics, from 1842 to 1847, '" Pennsylvania College, and was 
Principal Assistant Engineer on the Pennsylvania Railroad and 
Assistant to John Edgar Thomson, from 1847 ^o 1S49. In 1849 
Mr. Haupt was notified by J. Edgar Thomson that he had been 
selected for the post of Superintendent and instructed to visit the 
principal railroads of New York and New England, examine all 
matters connected with their operation and prepare a plan for the 
business organization of the Pennsylvania road. The plan re- 
ported was adopted without change and Mr. Haupt was appointed 
Superintendent of Transportation on September i, 1849, when the 
road was opened to Lewistown. He was made General Superin- 
tendent January 8, 1851, resigning, in 1852, to accept an appoint- 
ment of Chief Engineer of the Southern Railway of Mississippi, 
but was unanimously appointed Chief Engineer of the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad April 30, 1853, and completed the Allegheny 
Tunnel and the Mountain Division. November 23, 1855, H. 
Haupt, John H. Bringhurst and George M. Howell were elected 
by the City Councils of Philadelphia, Directors of the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad Company to represent the interests of the City in 
the Board, and thus, at the same time, Mr. Haupt held the office 
of Chief Engineer as well as Director. 

In this connection the American Railroad Jourjial of Decem- 
ber I, 1855, said, "The selection of the above-named gentlemen 
has given great satisfaction and is a piece of good management 
so far as practical business qualities and the highest engineering 
talent and skill are concerned. Mr. Haupt's reputation as a civil 
engineer and bridge builder is as extensive as the existence of 
the railroads themselves. His works on these subjects are not only 
regarded as first-class authority in this country but have been 
translated into several European languages." 

In 1856 Mr. Haupt withdrew from the Pennsylvania Railroad 
and commenced the construction of the Hoosac Tunnel, in Massa- 
chusetts. The work was prosecuted with great energy and success 
until 1862, when it was assumed, through the persistent efforts of 
Governor Andrew, as a State work, an unfortunate change of 



96 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

policy that cost the State many milHons of dollars. It had been 
conclusively demonstrated to the satisfaction of investigating com- 
mittees that the resources of Messrs. H. Haupt & Company were 
sufficient, with the aid of the original loan of credit by the State, 
to complete the Hoosac Tunnel and the Troy and Greenfield 
Railroad, of which it formed a part. By assuming the tunnel as 
a State work the time of completion was delayed from six to 
eight years and the cost increased, through mismanagement, many 
millions of dollars. 

In the spring of 1862 Mr. Haupt was summoned to Wash- 
ington by the Secretary of War and placed in charge of a Bureau 
of the War Department as Chief of Construction and Operation 
of the Military Railroads of the United States, with the authority 
to take possession of any road required and to make requisition 
upon any company for cars and engines ; also to organize an 
independent corps for construction and operation. This corps 
consisted of several hundred negroes selected from refugees in 
Washington, with fifty to seventy-five bridge and track foremen 
and a large number of work oxen which were humorously called 
" Haupt's Horned Cavalry." This corps became a marvel of effi- 
ciency. The published accounts of its work were regarded as 
incredible in Europe and at a meeting of the British Association, 
in 1867, at which General Haupt was present by invitation, he 
was asked whether the published statements in regard to the con- 
struction of the military bridges were correct, and if so to explain 
how such phenomenal results had been accomplished. The expla- 
nation elicited a vote of thanks, invitations to accept the hospi- 
tality of distinguished members and a banquet tendered by the 
Royal Engineers. This corps accompanied Sherman in his march 
to the sea and under the supervision of E. C. Smeed built a rail- 
road bridge across the Chattahoochie in Georgia, 700 feet long, 
100 feet high in the middle, in four and a half days, taking the 
timber from the stumps. The world never before, nor since, wit- 
nessed such a feat, and without the aid of the construction corps 
there can be no doubt that Sherman's march would have been a 
failure instead of a success. Its work, as Colonel Lazelle, in 



HERMAN HAUPT. 97 

charge of the " War Records " remarks, was of inestimable value 
to the country but was never either recognized or appreciated. 

The first of these military railroad bridges was built on the 
line of the Fredericksburg Railroad in the spring of 1862 by 
details of unskilled common soldiers and was regarded by General 
McDowell as a most remarkable performance. President Lincoln 
and his Cabinet passed over it the next morning after its completion 
and on his return to Washington at a meeting of the War Com- 
mittee was reported to have said, " Gentlemen, I have witnessed 
the most remarkable structure that human eyes ever rested upon. 
That man Haupt has built a bridge across Potomac Creek in 
nine days with common soldiers, and upon my soul, gentlemen, 
there is nothing in it but bean poles and corn stalks." 

On assuming charge of the Bureau, Mr. Haupt received a 
commission as Colonel and Aid-de-Camp to General McDowell. 
His position was independent of the General's in command in the 
field and his reports were made directly to the Secretary of War 
and to General Halleck. He had written authority which secured 
admittance to the presence of the Secretary of War at any hour, 
day or night. 

In 1862 a work, "Haupt on Military Bridges," was published 
by D. Van Nostrand & Company. September 5, 1862, Colonel 
Haupt was commissioned Brigadier-General for meritorious ser- 
vices in the operations against the enemy during the second battle 
of Manassas. 

In June, 1863, when Lee's army had moved north of the 
Potomac, General Haupt was authorized by a special order of the 
War Department to do "whatever he might deem expedient" to 
aid the armies in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. He 
repaired to Harrisburg, and notified General Meade that Lee was 
concentrating his columns in the direction of Gettysburg, evidently 
with a view to fall upon his army corps before they could be placed 
in position for defence. General Meade was thus apprised of his 
danger and hastened his forces to a defensible position. General 
Haupt then proceeded to open communication with Gettysburg 
and forward supplies, keeping the army so well supplied that Chief 



98 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 



Quartermaster-General Ingalls declared that during the whole of 
the battle they never had less than three or four days' supplies 
in advance. 

Space will not permit further reference to General Haupt's 
most distinguished military services, but after the war he filled 
a number of very honorable and responsible professional positions ; 
amongst others, those of Chief Engineer of the Shenandoah Val- 
ley Railroad, General Manager of the Richmond and Danville 
system and Chief Engineer of the Seaboard Pipe Line. He sug- 
gested and prepared a plan for the organization of the Southern 
Railway and steamship associates, which was adopted in con- 
vention at Macon, and Mr. Haupt was proposed as the first 
commissioner, but declined. In 1881 General Haupt was appointed 
General Manager of the Northern Pacific Railroad; in 1884 Presi- 
dent of the Dakota and Great Southern Railroad Company and, 
since 1892, has devoted his time to the development and intro- 
duction of compressed air motors for city and suburban service. 
He has demonstrated their superiority in efficiency and economy 
over any other system and greatly increases the length of run with 
a single charge of air. General Haupt is the only surviving hon- 
orary member of the Engineers' Club of Philadelphia. His per- 
manent residence is in Washington, D. C. 





^!h^^^A ^i . ^<^^i«u_ 





^N earnest and intelligent leader in the council halls 
of the State; Mayor of Elmira; Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor; thrice Governor; United States Senator, 
and prominent candidate for the Presidency of 
the nation, the career of David B. Hill is one 
of the most remarkable in the political annals of the Empire 
State. With onl)- average advantages for scholastic training 
while a youth, he nevertheless made the most of every oppor- 
tunity and has invariably proven himself thoroughly fitted to 
cope with any situation in which he has been placed. Enemies 
he undoubtedly has, but few will be found who longer decry 
his ability, and although he has now been for several years in 
comparative retirement, his past career and his activity as a 
statesman and political manager would seem to warrant the 
assertion that his retirement is but a temporary one, and that the 
near future will find him again in the lead of his party's forces. 

D.vviD Bennett Hill was born in Havana, Chemung (now 
Schuyler) County, New York, on the 29th day of August, 1843. 
After taking a course in the public schools of his native village, 
he attended the excellent academy at Havana, where his scholas- 
tic education was completed. Leaving school, however, at a com- 
paratively early age, and his inclinations leading him into the 
profession of law, he entered the office of an attorney in his 
native place. He made rapid progress, but perceiving enlarged 
opportunities in Elmira, he went thither in 1863, and again 
applied himself assiduously to the study of law, grasping its 
principles so readily that in the following year he was admitted 
to the Bar. 



99 



lOO REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

Then, as ever, taking a deep interest in politics, he entered 
into his party's strife with a vigor that won for him, in the same 
year, the position of City Attorney. Since 1868 he has many 
times been a Delegate to Democratic State conventions, and was 
President of those held in 1877 and 1S81. He was also one of 
the representatives of the State of New York to the Democratic 
National conventions of 1876 and 1884, and that both of these 
conventions nominated Governors of this State for the Presi- 
dency was largely due to Mr. Hill's able leadership. 

In 1870 and 1871 Mr. Hill was chosen to represent his 
county in the Legislature of the State; and, in 1882, Elmira 
elected him to the position of Mayor. His administration of the 
city government was a brilliant one, being signalized by several 
very important reforms which not only gave him additional 
strength in the section in which he lived, but extended his repu- 
tation throughout the length and breadth of the Commonwealth. 

By September, 1882, Mr. Hill had attained such prominence 
that he was nominated for Lieutenant-Governor on the Demo- 
cratic State ticket, and at the polls, in the following November, 
he was elected. Two years later, when Grover Cleveland resigned 
the Governorship to be nominated President of the United States, 
Mr. Hill succeeded to the Executive chair for the unexpired term. 
His administration of the State's affairs meeting with the satisfaction 
of the Democracy, he was nominated for the Governorship the 
next year and, in 1885, was elected Governor for the full term 
of three years, this election being a recognition by the party 
leaders, and indeed by the rank and file of the Democratic Party 
throughout New York and the nation of his claims as an earnest 
political worker and competent administrator of the governmental 
affairs of the State. His administration was so successful that, 
in 1888, having been again nominated to lead his party's ticket, 
he was elected in the face of the defeat of Grover Cleveland, 
who headed the national ticket of the Democracy. 

In the spring of 1891 he was elected United States Senator, 
being the first of his party for ten years to represent the State 
of New York in the Senate of the nation. Political exigencies, 



DAVID B. HILL. lOI 

however, led to his continuing- in the office of Governor until the 
expiration of his term, when he was duly sworn in as a Senator 
of the United States. 

During the campaign preceding the election of 1890, Mr, 
Hill went to Ohio, speaking with great success in the closely 
contested districts, and there is very little doubt that Mr. Hill's 
influence in this canvass, into which the Republican as well as 
the Democratic Party threw some of its best speakers and polit- 
ical workers, was largely instrumental in bringing about the suc- 
cess of John G. Warwick, who defeated William McKinley for 
re-election to the national House of Representatives. 

While United States Senator Mr. Hill was again nominated 
for Governor of New York, and although defeat was certain in 
the face of the overwhelming tidal wave that was sweeping over 
the State, he refused to abandon his party in the hour of im- 
pending defeat, and made a brave though unsuccessful canvass. 
At the expiration of his term as Senator he retired to private 
life. For a number of years Senator Hill was proprietor of the 
Elmira Gazette, the leading Democratic organ in the southern 
tier, but he severed his connections with it some time previous to 
his election to the Mayoralty. 

Frugal and temperate, and not using liquor or tobacco in 
any form, Mr. Hill still possesses a strong nervous and vital 
constitution, and though averse to the functions of fashionable 
society, his manners are most democratic and cordial. 





OBERT HOE, mechanical engineer and head of 
the well known firm of printing press manufac- 
turers of New York and London, was born in 
the city of New York on the loth day of March, 
1839. His father (Robert Hoe), whom he suc- 
ceeded in business, was born in New York in 181 5 and died at 
his country residence at Tarry town, in the summer of 1884. As- 
sociated with the latter was Richard M. Hoe, they having suc- 
ceeded to the business of their father, Robert Hoe, an English- 
man, who came to New York in 1802, from the hamlet of 
Hoes, near Nottingham, Leicestershire, England. The name of 
"Hoe" is the Saxon for "hill," being the equivalent of the 
French "haut." The origin of the family is, therefore, Anglo- 
Saxon. On his mother's side Mr. Hoe is of the oldest Puritan 
stock. 

Robert Hoe, the elder, established himself in New York as 
a manufacturer of printing presses as early as 1820, and was 
among the first if not the very first manufacturer of iron print- 
ing presses in America, only wooden plates and screw presses 
having previously been universally used. Among his earliest pro- 
ductions was a patented hand press. He also made the first suc- 
cessful single and double cylinder presses, printing from type on 
flat beds. In a single leap the productive power of presses was 
thereby advanced from four to five thousand to twenty thousand 
impressions per hour, and the Hoe machines were quickly intro- 
duced into the leading newspaper ofifices of the world. After his 
death, which occurred in 1833, his business was continued by his 
sons, Richard and Robert, above referred to, who in 1846-47 



102 



ROBERT HOE. 103 

brought out the then world-renowned printing press known as the 
" Lightning " or type-revolving machine, for which patents were 
taken out by Richard M. Hoe. These presses were used not 
only in America but in Great Britain. 

In 1863, Robert Hoe, the present head of the firm, entered 
the business as a partner. From that time to the present his 
labors in connection with it have been unremitting. During the 
past ten years, at the head of a large establishment, doubled in 
size and importance since the death of his father and uncle, and 
including in its personnel a great variety of talent, the firm has 
produced some of the most remarkable and original pieces of 
mechanism of the century. This new development in the presses 
has caused an equal development in the business, and what were 
previously thought very extensive works have been greatly in- 
creased. The number of employes in ordinarily busy times is 
about two thousand five hundred engineers and mechanics in the 
New York and London works, which are filled with the most 
modern tools and mechanical devices capable of producing the 
extremely accurate work required in printing machinery. The 
New York works of the firm occupy the space between Grand, 
SherifT, Columbia and Broome streets, embracing a floor space 
equivalent to eight acres. The branch works in London occupy 
a block of ground, and are equally well equipped. Every kind 
of printing press is made in this establishment, from the well 
known Washington hand press, cylinder presses of all kinds and 
power lithographic presses, to the large "Sextuple," "Quadruple" 
and "Double Supplement" machines, now used in all the princi- 
pal printing and newspaper offices in America, Great Britain and 
Australia. Anyone inspecting the vast printing room of the 
New York Herald, on Broadway, or the pressrooms of the Press, 
the World, the Journal and other great dailies of the cities of 
the country, will see in the presses which are nightly at work, 
throwing off printed sheets by the million, examples of the elab- 
orate and superb mechanisms which owe their existence to the 
intelligent enterprise and industry of the past few years. 

Mr. Hoe has associated with him as partners Theodore H. 



I04 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

Mead and Charles W. Carpenter. The present head of the firm 
has always resided in New York, where he takes an active inter- 
est in all matters relating to the progress of literature and art. 
He is not only a man of ability, but of cultivation, and was one 
of the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and of its 
connected industrial art schools, and labored assiduously in their 
behalf for many years. In his city residence he is the possessor 
of what is considered the finest private library in New York, if 
not in America, and which contains numbers of costly treasures, 
accumulated during what might properly be styled an industrious 
leisure. His collection of mediaeval, oriental and other illumi- 
nated manuscripts in vellum is unrivalled in this country, and his 
library abounds in fine examples of the typographical art. 

Mr. Hoe was also one of the founders and the first Presi- 
dent of the Grolier Club, an institution having literary and artis- 
tic aims, and a member of the Union League, Century, Engi- 
neers', Players' and other exclusive clubs. 




The Pcnti£crvi> IniSc-Pfi^'Z 




'?^^/l\/ // Y ^^^^1^^' 





MI-'. RICA has no sturdier stock than those of the 
sons of the Emerald Isle who have left their 
native land and sought homes across the seas, 
under the banner of freedom. In every walk of 
life, from the humble mechanics who form the 
bone and sinew of the Republic to those occupying the highest 
executive and administrative offices within the gift of the people, 
representatives of the Irish race may be found and found faithful 
and true to the trusts committed to them, whether their duties 
be great or small. Indeed, it would be only justice to say that 
throughout the length and breadth of our country no race of 
people has contributed more to the moral and material advance- 
ment of the nation than have these men and their descendants. 
The Bench, the Bar, the legislative hails, the counting room and 
the battlefield each have contributed many men of Irish birth to 
the national roll of honor, and that New York has been the 
home of a very great percentage of those whose integrity and 
industry have brought them fame and fortune, will be revealed 
by a review of her representative men. In the municipal govern- 
ment of the Empire City of the Empire State this is especially 
noticeable, for the Land of the Shamrock has many, many sons 
standing guard over the interests of the public, and it may be 
truly asserted that among the most justly esteemed of those who 
are occupied in the administration of the affairs of this great 
municipality is City Chamberlain of New York, Patrick Keenan, 
a man whose valuable services in minor posts have brought to 
him the important position he now so capably fills. 

Patrick Keenan, for ten years Alderman of New York City, 



'05 



Io6 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

County Clerk, leader in the Democratic organization and present 
City Chamberlain, was born in the County Tyrone, Ireland, in 
the year 1837. The days of his early boyhood were spent in his 
native land, in whose most excellent educational institutions he 
acquired the rudiments of the elementary branches. When he 
was fourteen years old, however, he was brought to America and 
completed his studies in the public schools of the city which he 
has since served with such distinction. It has been truly said of 
Mr. Keenan that had he remained in Ireland, with his 
eminent qualities of heart and mind, he would undoubtedly have 
been a prominent citizen ; that he has prospered in the land of 
his adoption is without question. His entrance into the busy 
life of the work-a-day world was as an apprentice to a plumber 
into whose service he entered immediately upon leaving school. 
His fidelity and steadfastness was amply foreshadowed by his 
remaining with his first master until 1863. Then, inspired by a 
most laudable ambition, he entered the business world on his 
own account and for eighteen years prospered and met with such 
deserved success that, in 1881, he was able to retire on a most 
comfortable competence. 

So much for his business life ; but, although he long held a 
position honored in the mercantile world, it is rather as a politi- 
cal leader and faithful public servant that he has distinguished 
himself. Mr. Keenan has always been an ardent and enthusiastic 
Democrat and one who could invariably be found in the fiercest 
of the fight in a political campaign, but he has steadfastly main- 
tained his independence and individuality of character, and his 
genial manners and affable temperament have gained for him so 
many earnest and sincere friends that he has rapidly risen to a 
position of leader in political life, for when the subject of this 
review was quite young he threw himself heart and soul into its 
turmoil and soon became a moving spirit in all the fights and 
difficulties of his time. He became a member of the County 
Democracy in 1880, and continued one of its most active spirits, 
but, with other prominent reformers, in the latter year he re- 
turned to the hospitable shelter of the Wigwam of Tammany 



/ 



PATRICK KEENAN. 107 

Hall and soon became a leading adviser and Sachem of that or- 
ganization, and has been leader of the Sixteenth District ever 
since. 

His first official position came to him, in 1872, as a fitting 
recognition of his strong personal character. He was in that 
year elected to the Board of Assistant Aldermen, and continued 
to be a member of that body until it was abolished, two years 
later. Subsequently, he was elected to the Board of Aldermen 
and served with distinction and ability for the six years which 
ended in 1882, when he attained a still higher office by his elec- 
tion to the post of County Clerk. He fulfilled the duties of that 
important office until 1885. To Mr. Keenan, also, came the 
honor, on the consolidation of the districts grouped about Man- 
hattan into the one city of Greater New York, of being its first 
City Chamberlain, which post he will doubtless fill with all the 
distinction which has characterized his conduct in every office he 
has previously held. 

Charitable in the extreme, Mr. Keenan's influence is largely 
used in securing places for less fortunate people, and his many 
deeds of kindness doubtless have much to do with his present 
popularity and success. 






v'^iORN with the talents that go to make up a suc- 
cessful speculator, James R. Keene is one of those 
who have followed out the unerring dictates of 
nature, and throwing aside every alluring induce- 
ment to enter other fields of effort, he has spent 
the hazardous atmosphere of the stock exchange. 
Now concentrating his attention on food products, now turning 
to railroads or to mining shares, he has had one of the most 
active and exciting careers on the street, and while, of course, 
meeting with occasional reverses, has been so eminently success- 
ful that since he left his Western home by his bold and daring 
operations he has greatly added to his already extensive fortune. 
James Robert Keene was born in England in 1839. He 
was the son of a London merchant, and at an early age was 
placed under a tutor and studied in Lincolnshire until prepared 
to enter a large private school. He remained here three years, 
and then went to Dublin to prepare for a higher course under 
an old master of Trinity. At this juncture, through injudicious 
ventures, Mr. Keene's father met with a serious impairment of 
his fortune. He then took his family to California, and, in 1852, 
settled in the northern part of that State. 

Although but fourteen years of age, the son had acquired an 
unusual English education, besides a fair training in French and 
Latin, and had already displayed all the energy which has since 
contributed so greatly to his success. His first employment was 
at Fort Reading as one of the guards of the animals at the post, 
on the then frontier and in the Indian country. After three 
months he had earned enough to buy a miner's outfit, and joined 



108 



^o prer 





IM^ 



JAMES R. KEENE. 109 

the throng of adventurous men who were prospecting every 
canyon, gulch and stream in search of gold. For several years 
he spent his time in mining, freighting, stock raising and milling 
with indifferent success, studying law, and even editing a newspaper 
for two years. Finding this unprofitable also, he went to Nevada 
a year or two after the discovery of gold and silver there, and 
secured some mining property. Reselling this advantageously, he 
returned to California and plunged into speculation in mining 
stocks in San Francisco, within a few months making a consider- 
able fortune. He then married Sara, daughter of Col. Leroy 
Daingerfield and a member of one of most aristocratic families of 
Virginia, she at that time residing in California with her brother, 
William P. Daingerfield, a United States District Judge. 

In the crash following the first excitement after the discovery 
of the Comstock lode, Mr. Keene lost all that he had made and 
found himself nearly penniless, in a strange city, with few ac- 
quaintances and friends. But he had a spirit which nothing 
could daunt. Through much hardship for a year or more he 
struggled, refusing every offer of employment, feeling confident 
that his only chance of recovering his lost fortune lay in specu- 
lation, for which he felt he had a natural talent. 

He secured some business as a broker and finally entered 
into a business arrangement with Senator C. N. Felton, then a 
member of the Stock H.xchange and one of the largest operators 
on the Pacific slope. Mr. Felton gave Mr. Keene the bulk of 
his business for some time, and upon the Senator's being ap- 
pointed Assistant United States Treasurer in San Francisco, he 
sold Mr. Keene his seat in the Stock Exchange. Once in the 
Board, Mr. Keene rose rapidly to great influence in the organi- 
zation, made much money and was soon elected to its Presidency. 
By purchasing the stocks of the California and Consolidated Vir- 
ginia mines, he made in this and other stocks of which he held 
large quantities, a fortune of several millions. When the Bank 
of California failed, Mr. Keene was one of the four contributors 
who gave a million dollars in cash to the guarantee fund which 
was necessary to secure the depositors of the Bank against loss, 



no REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

and enabled the institution to resume business. Through his 
influence the Stock Exchange contributed $500,000, while many 
of the leading brokers followed Mr. Keene's lead in contributing 
nearly as much more. 

His health impaired by the strain, Mr. Keene listened to 
the advice of his physicians and started for Europe on a long 
rest. He arrived in New York in the spring of 1877, en route 
for the Old World, and found the stock market here demoral- 
ized and prices as low as they had been in the panic of 1873. 
Here was an opportunity not to be lost, and he deferred his 
trip abroad and with the large capital at his command bought 
nearly all of the leading stocks, displayed all of his old energy 
and advanced the market, selling out in the autumn of 1879 
with a profit of nearly ten millions of dollars. And not till then 
did he obtain the rest in Europe which he had so well earned. 
On his return he perceived the many advantages which the East 
had to offer over the Pacific slope and settled in New York City, 
where he has since taken part in many of the most daring 
operations which have startled financiers. 

Of late, Mr. Keene, while still active in the financial world, 
has taken an especial interest in fine horses and his blooded 
stable has won many successes on the English and American 
turf. His home is at Cedarhurst, Long Island, and he is the 
Steward and Vice-President of the Jockey Club and a member 
of the Rockaway Hunt Club. His children are Foxhall Parker 
Keene, who married Miss Lawrence, of Bay Side, Long Island, 
and Jessie Harwar, wife of Talbot J. Taylor, of an old Mary- 
land family, and now a successful broker in New York. 




^^^2--^^<;"' 



■yC(^i. / Jijt'^^^'^^^^^.^-t^.^^^ 




^>^<^^ 




ESCENDKD from one of the oldest and most prom- 
inent families in the State, the career of Alexander 
P. Ketchum furnishes a fitting accompaniment to 
the deeds of his illustrious line of ancestors and 
gives him a deserved place among the progressive 
citizens of New York. As a faithful public servant and as a 
practitioner of his profession in the courts of this and neighbor- 
ing States, there is much in the story of his life that is worthy 
of emulation. 

Alexander Piuenix Ketciium was born in New Haven, 
Connecticut, May ii, 1839. His father, Edgar Ketchum, was 
born in New York City in 181 1, and died here in 1882. The 
parents of Alexander were on a visit to New Haven, where he 
was born, and returned to New York within a few months there- 
after. His grandparents on his father's side, John Jauncey 
Ketchum and Susanna Jauncey, were distantly related, and 
through both he is descended from the Jauncey family, which 
traces its lineage in America back to Guleyn Vigne, whose 
daughter, Rachel, married Cornelius Van Tienhoven, at one time 
Secretary of the New Netherlands, and one of the largest con- 
tributors to the defences of New Amsterdam in the list of 1655. 
The line runs backward as follows : Edgar Ketchum, senior, son 
of John Jauncey Ketchum and Susanna Jauncey, daughter of Jo- 
seph Jauncey, son of John Jauncey and Sarah Van Tienhoven, 
daughter of Cornelius Van Tienhoven, son of Lucas, who was the 
son of the original Cornelius Van Tienhoven. 

Elizabeth Phoenix, mother of Alexander P., was the daughter 
of Rev. Alexander Phoenix and Patty Ingraham, and the grand- 



112 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

daughter of Daniel Phoenix, first Treasurer of the City of New 
York after the organization of the United States under the Con- 
stitution of 1789, he holding that honorable position for nearly a 
quarter of a century thereafter. Daniel Phoenix was also one of 
the most prominent of the early New York merchants, and, in 
1789, was Chairman of the delegation of merchants that received 
Washington in New York on the occasion of the latter's inaugu- 
ration, while upon him devolved the honor of delivering the 
address of welcome to the illustrious first President, upon his 
entry into the city on November 26, 1783. He was a descendant 
of Jacob Phcenix, who with his wife, Anna Van Vleck, is found 
in Domine Selwyn's list of the Dutch Church in 1686. 

The subject of this sketch received his early education here, 
and graduated, in 1858, from the College of the City of New 
York. In this institution he won medals in natural history, draw- 
ing and mathematics, a prize for oratory in his senior year, and 
was chosen to deliver an honorary oration on the graduation of 
his class. He then served in the college for a short period as 
tutor in drawing and mathematics. In 1861 the degree of Master 
of Arts was conferred upon him by his Alma Mater. His college 
societies were the Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity, the Prenocosmian 
Society and the Phi Beta Kappa. After finishing his course he 
studied at the Albany Law School, graduating in i860 with the 
degree of Bachelor of Laws. 

Soon after this the war broke out, and Colonel Ketchum, 
volunteering his services, was assigned to the military department 
of the South as a member of the staff of Gen. Rufus Saxton, 
Military Governor of South Carolina. In this capacity he took 
part in the regulation of civil and military affairs along the South- 
ern coast until 1865, when he was transferred from General 
Saxton's staff to the staff of Major-General O. O. Howard, 
under whom he served as Acting Assistant Adjutant-General, first 
at Charleston, and afterwards at Washington. He resigned from 
the army in 1867, and two years later was appointed by President 
Grant Assessor, and a little later Collector of Internal Revenue 
for the Ninth District of New York. In 1874 he was made 



ALEX. P. KETCHUM. II3 

General Appraiser of the Port of New York in the Customs 
service. In 1883 President Arthur appointed him Chief Appraiser 
of the Port at New York City, which position he held until 
April, 1885, when a Democratic administration assumed control. 

Since that time Colonel Ketchum has practiced his profession 
of the law, and while engaging in general practice, has given 
special attention to the charge of estates and conveyancing, suc- 
cessfully conducting important suits in the United States Courts 
in which customs revenue were involved. Colonel Ketchum has 
lived in New York city since 1839. He was largely instrumental 
in the organization of the Mount Morris Bank, and was the first 
President of that institution. He is also active in Young Men's 
Christian Association work and various benevolent, religious and 
educational enterprises. During 1890 and 1891 he was President 
of the Presbyterian Union of New York City, and was four years 
President of the Alumni Association of the City College and is 
now President of the City College Club. 

He is also a member of the Military Order of the Loyal 
Legion ; the State Bar Association of New York ; the Numis- 
matic, Archaeological, and New England societies ; the Phi Beta 
Kappa Society ; the Republican Club of the City of New 
York ; the Republican, Central and Lenox Republican clubs of 
Harlem ; the Alpha Delta Phi Club, the New York, Atlantic 
and Riverside Yacht clubs, and a member of the School Board 
for the Boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. 






N such a crowded centre of population as the city 
of New York, the lawyer whose energetic efforts 
have won for him success in a profession whose 
membership embraces some of the most talented 
men in the nation has amply evidenced his right 
to be regarded as one of the Empire State's most representative 
citizens. Not alone those whose birthplace is within the Com- 
monwealth have had to be met before Bench and jury, but the 
master minds of his profession from every quarter of the United 
States have sought the great business centre of the hemisphere 
as affording them the fullest scope for their abilities and ambi- 
tions. Few pleaders in the courts of New York, however, have 
more justly acquired their extensive practices than has Edward 
Lauterbach, the outlines of whose successful career are given in 
this sketch. 

Edward Lauterbach was born in the City of New York on 
the 1 2th day of August, 1844, and the years of his youth were 
spent principally in the city of his birth. Here he attended 
preparatory schools and fitted himself to receive the inestimable 
benefits of a collegiate education. After a thorough course, 
during which he applied himself to his studies with commendable 
zeal, he was graduated from the College of the City of New 
York with honors, in 1864, and at once commenced the study of 
the law in the offices of Townsend, Dyett & Morrison. After a 
time he was made a member of the firm which was, on his 
advent, re-organized as Morrison, Lauterbach & Spingarn. Upon 
the death of Mr. Spingarn the partnership was dissolved, Mr. 
Lauterbach becoming a member of the present firm of Hoadley, 



114 



iri the c - 




ScdoaML^ J<f^^^6(A 




EDWARD LAUTERBACH. 



115 



Lauterbach & Johnson, one of the best known in the country. 
He early appHed himself with indefatigable industry to his pro- 
fession, and soon acquired a recognized standing at the Bar as a 
successful corporation lawyer, for it was of the statutes relating 
to corporate bodies that he made an especial study. He has 
been engaged in many important litigations, and has been 
especially successful in settling cases involving large interests out- 
side of court. 

As a railroad organizer, too, Mr. Lauterbach has fairly won 
a wide reputation. He was concerned in the re-organization of 
the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, brought about the con- 
solidation of the Union and Brooklyn Elevated roads, thereby 
transforming two conflicting interests into a single, powerful and 
prosperous property and induced the merging of interests which 
created the Consolidated Telegraph and Electrical Subway. As 
attorney of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, he obtained a 
recognition of the largest subsidies from the United States 
government. Mr. Lauterbach also secured the incorporation of 
the East River Bridge Company, whose charter empowers them 
to erect two bridges between the cities of New York and Brook- 
lyn, both structures to start from the same point in New York 
and to separate so as to reach two different points in Brooklyn, 
with a crosstown elevated road from the New York terminus to 
the Hudson River. 

Mr. Lauterbach has been instrumental in the introduction 
of a number of important legislative bills, many of which were 
enacted into laws. One of these was a law for uniformly regu- 
lating surface cars throughout the State of New York, thus put- 
ting on a par all the cities of the Commonwealth. 

Mr. Lauterbach was one of the three Delegates-at-Large rep- 
resenting the City of New York in the Constitutional Convention, 
in June. 1894, and was Chairman of the Committee of Public 
Charities. Outside of his profession he is especially interested in 
the cause of education. He has also devoted much time and 
attention to the philanthropic institutions of the city and is a 
generous contributor to every form of charity, and has done 



ii6 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 



much to further the interests of some of the best known benevo- 
lent institutions. 

He was for a number of years the Chairman of the Repub- 
lican County Committee of New York, and was more than ordi- 
narily active in that capacity, and succeeded in bringing the 
organization into the most perfect condition that it had then ever 
attained. Mr. Lauterbach is also a member of the Advisory Com- 
mittee of the Republican State Committee, his associates being 
Thomas C. Piatt, Chauncey M. Depew, Frank S. Witherbee and 
Frank Hiscock. He represented the State of New York as Del- 
egate-at- Large to the National Republican Convention which was 
held in the City of St. Louis, in June, 1896, and was the State 
of New York's member of the Committee on Resolutions and a 
member of the sub-committee of five which drafted the platform, 
being especially interested in the adoption of the financial plank 
which formed the issue presented to the people at the last na- 
tional election. 

Mr. Lauterbach is a member of several clubs and is now 
Director and Counsel of the Third Avenue Surface Railroad 
Company, the Brooklyn Elevated Railroad Company, the Con- 
solidated Telegraph and Electrical Subway Company and various 
other of the most important corporations in the Empire State, 
the Subway Company being organized and the legislation author- 
izing the exercise of its functions secured by the subject of this 
sketch. It resulted in the removal of poles and wires from the 
principal streets in New York City, and their burial under ground, 
a work which of itself would entitle Mr. Lauterbach to rank 
amone the foremost citizens of the Commonwealth. 






^V»\U>^MPIRE STATE though she is, New York owes not 
^ TZ% ^ a Httle of her high position as a centre of wealth 

I ^ and learning to the fact tliat men of energy and 

(■•■Ht^ ability have had the foresight to perceive enlarged 
opportunities here and, leaving sister Common- 
wealths, have made their homes and sought their fortunes within 
her borders. Indeed, it is fair to say that the State's and par- 
ticularly New York City's high place in every sphere of human 
thought and action is as much owing to the efforts of her adopted 
sons as to those born upon her soil. In the legal profession, 
especially, it is noticeable that the South has contributed many 
men who have won eminence in her courts, not only as orators, 
but because of their deep and intimate acquaintance with the 
principles of common and statutory law. Of these, not the least 
deserving is the subject of this review who, although he is a 
comparatively recent addition to the city's Southern colony, has won 
pronounced success at the Bar. 

L. D. Mayes was born on the 12th day of September, 1847, 
at Courtland, Lawrence County, Alabama. His father was Pat- 
rick H. Mayes, who was born on the 7th day of August, 1822, 
at Courtland, Alabama, and who moved to Arkansas in 1859. 
While a resident of the latter State the elder Mayes was elected 
a delegate to the State Convention of 1861, which was called 
together to decide whether or not the State of Arkansas would 
secede from the Union. Mr. Mayes was a Baptist Minister, and 
because of his adherence to the Union, both in and out of the 
convention, came very near being hanged by the secessionists. 
Had it not been for the fact that he was a slave owner, this 



117 



Il8 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

probably would have been his fate ; or possibly it was his fear- 
lessness which saved him, for he informed his enemies as to his 
whereabouts and sent them word, " I will kill as many of you as 
you will of me, and possibly more." In the fall of 1861 he re- 
moved to Southern Texas and died in Tarrant County, on the 
2ist day of July, 1879, honored and respected by the entire com- 
munity. Both of his grandfathers were in the Revolutionary Army 
and had most praiseworthy military records. 

The mother of L. D. Mayes, our subject, was Mary Jane 
Thompson, who was born near Knoxville, Tennessee, on the 31st 
day of October, 1824, and married to Patrick H. Mayes in 1845. 
Both of her grandfathers, too, were in the Revolutionary Army, 
and her grandmother was in the fort at Knoxville for two years 
during the struggle for independence. Since men were scarce at 
the fort, she took her turn with the other women in standing 
guard, and one night while on guard an Indian was crawling to 
the fort to set it on fire, when she killed him. During the war 
she killed two others. At the battle of New Orleans one of her 
sons, a crack shot, and a comrade, were called up by General 
Jackson and told that if General Packingham was killed that "he 
wanted to see him." When they both fired at him Packingham 
fell, and two soldiers picked him up. They killed both of these 
with the butts of their rifles, and carried the General and laid him 
at Jackson's feet, shot through with one ball. Her son always 
claimed that he did it. 

Like so many of the generation which was coming to man- 
hood during the years in which the civil strife was raging 
between the States, the subject of this review never received the 
advantages of early education he would otherwise have had, but 
his mother instructed him at home and gave him such facilities 
for the acquisition of knowledge as were then and there possible, 
but in all he had gone to a private school but twenty-two months 
when the institution was closed by the outbreak of the war. Mr. 
Mayes then went into the store with his father and served for 
nearly a year as a clerk. At this juncture his parents moved to 
Texas, and the son to battle as a volunteer in the Confederate 



L. D. MAYES. 119 

Army. When the internecine struggle had ceased his father, like 
so many of his unhappy neighbors, was nearly ruined, his slaves 
free, his stock gone and but a few hundred acres of land remain- 
ing, and this, indeed, was threatened with confiscation because of 
an elective office which he had held in Arkansas. The health of 
the elder Mayes being poor and his land thus threatened, he sold 
his property for what it would bring and moved to North Texas, 
where the entire care of the family soon devolved upon the sub- 
ject of this sketch. 

Mr. Mayes has been in contact with the busy world since early 
boyhood, when he learned the trade of carpenter. Ambitious to 
occupy a higher station in life, however, than was open to a me- 
chanic and farmer, he determined to study law, and he first took 
a business course at Eastman's College, Poughkeepsie, New York, 
graduating with some honor in May, 1880. One year before his 
mother's death he was admitted to the Bar, and promptly began 
the active practice of his profession at Fort Worth in January, 
1885, still running his farm. Seeking a wider field, in December, 
1893, he was admitted to the Bar in Brooklyn, New York. His 
first office was opened in Poughkeepsie, but seeing that city did 
not offer him the opportunities that he could find in the metrop- 
olis, he came afterwards to New York City and has succeeded in 
building up a very satisfactory practice, and one that holds out 
high promise for the future. 

Mr. Mayes is a member of several Democratic organizations, 
and was connected with the Baptist Church for more than twenty 
years. He was made a Master Mason in 1876. 

He was married on the 29th day of December, 1886, to Miss 
Minnie H. Morgan, of Poughkeepsie, whose father was one of the 
most prominent men of the community and at one time Mayor of 
the city, also serving a term in the New York State Senate. They 
have no children. 





SAAC NEWTON MILLER, the subject of this 
sketch, although residing in the State of New 
Jersey, where he also has a large legal following, 
is best known as an active member of New York's 
Bar, and as one of the most successful practitioners 
before the courts of the Empire State. In his practice, covering 
not only New York and New Jersey, but several neighboring 
States as well and even reaching across the broad Atlantic, he 
has acquired a reputation as widespread as it was fairly achieved, 
and by the exercise of his stern sense of justice and honor and 
sturdy independence of character, qualities which especially char- 
acterize him, he has won a place in his profession of which he 
has every right and reason to be proud. 

Isaac Newton Miller was born in the town of Augusta, 
Oneida County, New York, on the 22d day of October, 1851. 
He is the son of Isaac C. Miller and Elizabeth Wood, the for- 
mer of whom was the son of Isaac Miller, who came to Oneida 
County from Southern Connecticut when the territory around 
what is now the town of Kirkland was little more than a wilder- 
ness. He bought large tracts of land in the neighborhood from 
the Indians, and was the first white settler in Kirkland. The 
Miller family is descended from old Puritan stock, and was one 
of the most prominent in Connecticut in the early Colonial days, 
contributing to the country some of its most eminent men. Isaac 
N. Miller, the subject of this biography, is a cousin of William 
Henry Harrison Miller, law partner of ex-President Benjamin Har- 
rison, and Attorney-General in his Cabinet. The Wood family, 
too, has a long line of most honorable ancestry, leading back to 



«J V*; 



ISAAC N. MILLER. 121 

the earliest days of the New England settlements. Mr. Miller's 
great-grandmother on the maternal side of the ancestral house 
was a sister of Nathaniel Greene. 

The subject of this review received his early education in the 
district schools in Oneida County, passing from thence to the 
Seminary at Whitestown, New York, where he pursued his studies 
for some time, afterwards taking a course in the High School at 
Clinton, New York, where he prepared himself for college. He 
completed the course and was graduated from Hamilton College 
in 1873, and from Hamilton College Law School in the following 
year, having, during the latter part of his classical course, begun 
the study of statutory and common law. Although he was admit- 
ted to the Bar of Oneida County in June, 1874, and was legally 
qualified for the practice of his profession, he was too ambitious 
to be satisfied with his attainments, and, coming to New York 
City, he began a post-graduate course in the Columbia College 
Law School, and at once established himself in practice in the 
metropolis of the nation. 

Thoroughly self-reliant and confident of his own attainments 
and abilities, Mr. Miller never formed a law partnership, although 
all the cases of the late Henry Brewster were conducted by him 
during the last few years of that aged lawyer's life. By strict 
devotion to the interests of his own clients, too, Mr. Miller has 
gathered about him an extensive practice, principally in litigated 
cases, until to-day, in the number and importance of the cases 
entrusted to him in the New York Supreme Court, he ranks 
among the most active lawyers in this most important depart- 
ment of practice in the City of New York. In the case of Clare 
vs. the Providence and Stonington Steamship Company, he was 
the only lawyer who recovered damages for the loss of life in 
the famous Narragansett disaster of June 11, 1880, in which 
about forty lives were lost. He had for opposing attorneys in 
this case the firm of Miller, Pcckham & Dixon, and the litigation 
was extended during a period of about eight years. Another 
important case, Ledyard vs. Bull, in which the administrators of 
Asa Worthington, ftjrmcrly United States Minister to Peru, 



122 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

brought suit for an accounting by H. W. Worthington, involved 
several unique points of law which Mr. Miller's thorough grasp 
of the intricacies of his profession enabled him to conduct to a 
successful issue. He has also had charge of a number of im- 
portant cases in the English Court of Appeals, growing out of 
will contests and involving very extensive interests. In one 
case of this kind, Healy vs. Beekman, he recovered especially 
heavily for his client. He has been in England many times in 
the conduct of these causes, one of the most important suits 
of which, Barker vs. Beevor, involving $2,000,000, was carried 
to the British Court of Appeals. 

Mr. Miller is a Republican in politics, but with that self- 
abnegation that craves no reward beyond that given by a satisfied 
conscience, he has steadfastly refused to become a candidate for 
any ofifice, preferring to devote the whole of his time and atten- 
tion to his growing legal practice in New York City. He makes 
his residence in the State of New Jersey, where he also enjoys a 
practice scarcely second to that which he has acquired in the 
Empire State. Indeed, the demands of his New Jersey clients 
are so extensive that he is compelled to have branch offices in 
Jersey City. Mr. Miller's country place is located at Lakeview, 
near Paterson, New Jersey, and is one of the handsomest homes 
in that locality, being especially notable for its possession of one 
of the largest private conservatories in the State, for Mr. Miller 
spends many of his spare moments among his fruits and flowers 
and is recognized as one of the most successful amateur floricult- 
urists in our sister Commonwealth. 








m-iixiYia'aeCtrrmn 





•.\V YORK has few men whose high-minded and 
noble-hearted philanthropy has been productive of 
more good to the community than has the discrim- 
inating charity of the subject of this review. Be- 
lieving in the kind of assistance that really assists, 
he has contributed largely to institutions whose object is to help 
men to help themselves. A native of the Commonwealth, he 
returned to it after acquiring fame on the Pacific Slope, to find 
the State of his birth proud to once more number him among 
her most prominent and progressive men. 

Darius Ogden Mills was born in North Salem, Westchester 
County, New York, September 5, 1825. His father died when 
he was sixteen years of age, and later investments having proved 
unfortunate, the lad was left without resources. He soon found 
a clerkship in New York, and at the age of twenty-two became 
cashier and one-third owner in a small bank in Buffalo. Two 
years later he was one of the earliest victims of the gold fever, 
sailing for California in December, 1848. He soon began busi- 
ness in Sacramento, and the gold bank of D. O. Mills & Co., 
then established, is still flourishing and still under his control and 
the oldest bank of unbroken credit in the State. He was imme- 
diately and conspicuously successful. The luck of D. O. Mills 
became a proverb, but it was attended with a reputation for judg- 
ment, rapid decision, boldness and absolute integrity. He became 
largely interested in mines on the Great Comstock Lode, secured 
control of the Virginia & Truckee Railroad leading to it and of 
the immense forests about Lake Tahoe which supplied it, acquir- 
ing a large share in the chief quicksilver mines, and bought ex- 

123 



124 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

tensive ranches and other property, but dealt in everything on the 
principle of a banker and boldly but rarely in a speculative vifay. 

In 1864 Mr. Mills founded the Bank of California in San 
Francisco, heading the list for the capital and assuming the Pres- 
idency. It became one of the best known banks in the country, 
with the highest credit in the financial sections both in Europe 
and Asia. Desiring finally to retire from business Mr. Mills re- 
signed the Presidency in 1873, leaving the bank with a capital of 
$5,000,000, large surplus, profitable business, first-rate organization 
and unlimited credit. Two years later he was called back to find 
it with liabilities of $13,500,000 above its capital and surplus, with 
only $100,000 in its vaults and with many doubtful assets. His 
old cashier, Wm. C. Ralston, had been President in the mean- 
time. He had loaned Ralston the capital on which he later began 
business in San Francisco and had trusted him. Mr. Mills had 
resio-ned his Directorship in the bank when retiring from its man- 
agement and finally had sold his stock, but Ralston, against his 
wishes, had continued to have him elected a Director, buying 
enough of Mr. Mills' stock to qualify for a Directorship, and 
keeping it in Mr. Mills' name without his knowledge. Mr. Mills 
returned from Europe shortly before the crash, and was first ap- 
pealed to by William Sharon to save Ralston's personal credit. 
He at once responded, loaning Mr. Ralston $400,000 that day 
and $350,000 more within a week. It subsequently appeared that 
this money was used to take up fraudulent over-issues of the 
bank's stock. A few days later the bank failed, creating an ex- 
citement that convulsed the Pacific coast. Mr. Ralston committed 
suicide, and Mr. Mills was recalled to the Presidency. He headed 
the new subscription with $1,000,000, raised nearly $7,000,000 
more and opened the doors of the bank one month and five days 
after they had been closed. He insisted on holding the Presi- 
dency now without pay and resigned peremptorily within three 
years, as soon as he felt that the bank was firmly established. 
Afterwards he uniformly refused the care of any business but his 
own. He gradually transferred heavy investments to the East, 
erected the then largest of^ce building in New York, and finally 



D. O. MILLS. 125 

returned to reside near his birthplace. He had been Regent of 
the University of California, and when he resigned this place he 
gave an endowment of $75,000 to found the Mills professorship 
in moral and intellectual philosophy. About the same time he 
presented to the city the marble group " Columbus before Queen 
Isabella " by Larkin G. Meade, which now stands in the centre of 
the State House rotunda at Sacramento. In New York Mr. 
Mills presented to the city a building on the Bellevue Hospital 
grounds costing $100,000 for the training of male nurses. He 
has been an active Trustee of the Lick Estate and Lick Obser- 
vatory in California, of the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of 
Natural History and also of the American Geographical Society. 

Mr. Mills married, September 5, 1854, Jane T., daughter of 
James Cunningham, of New York. He has two children, a 
daughter and a son. The former married Whitelaw Reid, editor 
of the New York Tribtine. 

Mr. Mills is President and Director of the Virginia & 
Truckee Railroad, Director of the Bank of New York, Carson 
and Colorado Railway, Cataract Construction Company, City and 
Suburban Homes Company, Duluth and Iron Range Railroad, 
Edison Electric Illuminating Company, Erie Railroad Company, 
Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, Lake Shore and Michigan 
Southern Railroad Company, Madison Square Garden Company, 
Mergenthaler Linotype Company, Metropolitan Opera and Real 
Estate Company, Minnesota Iron Company, Niagara Develop- 
ment Company, Niagara Junction Railway Company, and Trustee 
of the Metropolitan Trust Company and United States Trust 
Company. 






E who can conquer the difficulties that lie in the 
path of a political aspirant who is identified with 
the minority party in the City of New York is, 
indeed, a most remarkable man and one who pos- 
sesses, besides keen perceptive faculties and more 
than ordinary abilities, a strong personality and a magnetism that 
gathers around him devoted followers. Throughout the nation 
the fame of the Tammany Society in New York is a syn- 
onym for keenness and solidity, and he who successfully defies 
that ancient organization has the courage of a Spartan and the 
skill of a Napoleon. That John Murray Mitchell, who is now, 
for the second term, representing New York's Eighth Congress- 
ional District in Congress, is abundantly possessed of the qualities 
necessary to successful leadership is amply proven by his selection 
for the post he occupies, while his course in the national legisla- 
ture and the place he now holds in its deliberations are evidence 
that to these qualities are added the instinct of the true states- 
man. 

John Murray Mitchell is the son of the late William Mit- 
chell, at one time Chief Justice of the Appellate Division of the 
Supreme Court in the County of New York, and later a Justice 
of the State Court of Appeals. His mother's name was Berrien 
and her family, of old Huguenot origin, settled in New Town, 
Long Island, in 1653, the name then being written de B^rien. 
Congressman Mitchell's grandfather, Edward Mitchell, came from 
Colerain, near the Giant's Causeway, Ireland, in 1785, and settled 
in New York. He was then about twenty-one years of age and 
had received a broad education for those days, his father being a 



126 





~4r 




JOHN M. MITCHELL. 127 

publisher and especially interested in church matters, which resulted 
in his becoming a preacher in what has become known as the 
Universalist faith, of whicii he and John Murray were practically 
the originators. After his death the church established a fund 
for the perpetuation of his ideas, and to be used in publishing 
his sermons. 

John Murray Mitchell was born, March 18, 1858, in Ninth 
Street, New York City, and the period of his early boyhood was 
spent chietly in that city, in whose educational institutions he was 
prepared for admission to Columbia College, from which he was 
graduated, in 1877, as the valedictorian of his class, with the 
degree of Bachelor of Arts, later receiving the degree of Master 
of Arts. He then decided to study for the legal profession and, 
accordingly, entered the Columbia Law School, from which he was 
graduated, in 1879, ^^'''^''' the degree of Bachelor of Laws. After 
an extended tour abroad, during which he studied French, Ger- 
man and Italian and International Law, he served as a clerk, for 
two years, in his father's office, there gaining much experience 
that later stood him in good stead. 

In 1882 he started in practice on his own account and in 
1889 formed a partnership with his brothers, Edward and 
William. In May, 1894, he associated himself in the practice of 
the law with John R. and Benjamin F. dos Passos, the well-known 
lawyers and authors of several standard law books — the firm name 
being Dos Passos Brothers & Mitchell. In one case before the 
United States Supreme Court, Mr. Mitchell appeared as counsel 
for the Judges of tiie United States Circuit Court of Appeals for 
the Second Circuit. Twenty-four of the most prominent law firms 
in New York City had asked for a madamus compelling this 
Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse their decision as contrary to 
law, but the Supreme Court unanimously decided in Mr. Mitchell's 
favor. 

Mr. Mitchell has long been identified with the Republican 
Party in the Empire State and speedily rose to prominence in its 
councils, which culminated, in 1894, in his nomination, by accla- 
mation, to represent his district in the Congress of the United 



128 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

States. He accepted the arduous undertaking of leading his party 
and made a furious campaign, giving notice of prosecution if fraud 
was attempted at the election. When the polls closed his oppo- 
nent had an apparent majority of 367, but the Republican candi- 
date immediately decided to contest the seat. He employed 
detectives at his own expense, and made such a splendid exposure 
of the trickery that had encompassed his apparent defeat that, on 
June 2, 1896, the House of Representatives decided, by a vote of 
162 to 39, to give him the place, even the Democratic members 
of the Committee throwing out one-third of the majority against 
him. 

His conduct in the legislative halls so won the approval of 
his constituents that a few months later he was re-nominated by 
acclamation and waged another famous campaign in his district. 
The odds against which he battled were almost overwhelming, but 
he received a majority of 1,269, being the only "gold" candidate 
elected in the city south of Twenty-third Street. During his 
service in Congress he has several times spoken on measures 
which affected the interests of his constituency and the country at 
large, and has succeeded in carrying through a number of bills. 
The committees he serves on in Congress are three, viz: Banking 
and Currency, Patents, and Election of President, Vice-President 
and Representatives in Congress. He is one of the special com- 
mittee of three appointed to draw the bill which this committee 
recently completed entitled " An act for strengthening the public 
credit for the relief of the United States Treasury and for the 
amendment of the laws relating to national banking associations." 
This bill has received the highest commendation from numerous 
Boards of Trade and Chambers of Commerce all over the country 
and from the Monetary Commission. 

Mr. Mitchell married the daughter of Dr. John F. Talmage, 
the celebrated homeopathist. He is the owner and captain of 
the yacht " Bedouin," has had experience in building several 
electric railways and is a member of an unusually large number 
of clubs and scientific, charitable and political societies. 




r>v^^ 





^EW YORK, teeming tliough it is with men of 
national and international fame, has few citizens 
whose names will be longer or more gratefully 
remembered than will that of the subject of this 
biography. Inheriting from his Puritan ancestors 
all their firmness of character and staunchness of integrity, he has 
been honored by the people of his State and by the nation with 
a frequency that could have had its source only in an honest 
appreciation of his many admirable qualities of heart and mind. 
Elected to represent his State in the halls of the national legisla- 
ture, his course was so thoroughly to the satisfaction of his con- 
stituents that he was returned by a largely increased majority. 
Mr. Morton has ably represented his country at the capital of 
France; as Vice-President of the United States has presided over 
the deliberations of the Senate, while as Governor of the Empire 
State, he has given the people one of the best administrations in 
New York's history. 

Levi Parsons Morton was born at Shoreham, Vermont, on 
the 1 6th day of May, 1824. One of his ancestors was George 
Morton, of York, England, who was the financial agent of the 
" Mayflower " Puritans in England and came over in the ship 
" Ann " (arriving at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1623) and settled 
at Middleboro, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, where many of 
his descendants have resided until the present time. John, the 
son of George, was the first delegate to represent Middleboro in 
the General Court at Plymouth, in 1670, and he was again 
chosen in 1672. Levi Parsons Morton is the son of Rev. Daniel 
Oliver Morton and Lucretia Parsons Morton. His mother was a 



129 



130 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

descendant of Cornet Joseph Parsons, the father of the first child 
born at Northampton, Massachusetts, (May 2, 1655), his title of 
cornet indicating his position in a cavalry troop (the third officer 
in rank) and bearer of the colors. 

Levi received a public school and academic education ; 
entered a country store at Enfield, Massachussetts, at fifteen 
years of age, commenced mercantile business at Hanover, New 
Hampshire in 1843, removing to Boston in 1850 and to New 
York in 1854, and was extensively engaged in mercantile business 
in both cities until 1863, when he entered upon his career as a 
banker in New York City, under the name of L. P. Morton & 
Company. Soon after this time a foreign branch was established 
under the firm name of L. P. Morton, Burns & Company. In 
1869 the firm was dissolved and re-organized under the names of 
Morton, Bliss & Company, New York, and Morton, Rose & Com- 
pany, London, George Bliss entering the New York firm and Sir 
John Rose, then Finance Minister of Canada, going over to 
London to join the English house. The London firm of Morton, 
Rose & Company was appointed finance agents of the United 
States government in 1873, and Mr. Morton was later appointed 
by the President honorary commissioner to the Paris Exposition. 

Mr. Morton was elected to Congress as a Republican from 
the Eleventh District of New York (which had been Democratic 
previously) receiving 14,078 votes against 7,060 votes for B. A. 
Willis. His course was so satisfactory to his constituents that 
he was re-elected to the Forty-seventh Congress in 1880 by an 
increased vote over James W. Gerard, Jr. 

In March, 1881, he was nominated as Minister to France by 
President Garfield, and resigned his seat in the Forty-seventh 
Congress to accept the appointment. He presented his creden- 
tials as Minister to France to President Grevy on the ist day 
of August, 1 88 1, and resigned his post after the inauguration of 
President Cleveland, in 1885, returning to New York in July 
of the same year. During his residence in France he secured 
from the French Government the official decree which was 
established on the 27th day of November, 1883, revoking the 



LEVI P. MORTON. 131 

prohibition of American pork products, but the prohibitory decree 
was subsequently renewed by the legislature. He secured also 
the recognition of American corporations in France ; drove the 
first rivet in the Bartholdi Statue of " Liberty Englightening 
the World," and accepted the completed statue for his govern- 
ment on July 4, 1884. 

The Republican Party nominated him for the Vice-Presidency 
at their convention, held in Chicago, in 1888, he receiving 591 
votes against 234 votes for the other candidates. He was elected 
in November of the same year and inaugurated as Vice-President 
on the 4th day of March, 1889. Mr. Morton proved a model 
presiding officer, filling the position with a dignity and fairness 
that won the praise of all, without regard to party distinctions, 
even at a time when party politics were most earnestly discussed. 

Soon after returning to his New York home, Mr. Morton was 
called upon to lead the Republican Party as its candidate for Gov- 
ernor of the State. His opponent was Senator and ex-Governor 
David B. Hill, the then leader of New York's Democracy, but 
when the ballots had been cast and counted, it was found that 
the subject of this review had defeated his hitherto unconquered 
opponent by an overwhelming majority and the State government 
passed under the control of the Republicans. As the Executive 
of the State, Mr. Morton's administration ably vindicated the judg- 
ment of the people who had placed him in this most important 
post, and that it met with the approval of the masses is evidenced 
in the fact that Frank S. Black, his successor, was also a Repub- 
lican. 









jRANK MOSS, lawyer, was born at Cold Spring, 
Putnam County, New York, on the i6th day of 
fov) March, i860. His father was John R. Moss, a pro- 
fessor of music in Manchester, England, who came 
to America in 1850 and achieved considerable prom- 
inence in Newburgh and New York City. He was a Lieutenant 
in the Ninth New York Volunteers (Hawkins' Zouaves) during the 
Civil War, was captured by the Confederates, incarcerated in 
Libby Prison, paroled and exchanged. His wife was Eliza Wood, 
of Cold Spring, daughter of Joshua Wood, a veteran of the War 
of 1812. 

The subject of this sketch came to New York City with his 
parents at the age of six years, and was educated in the public 
schools and the College of the City of New York. He read 
law in the office of Joseph Fettretch, a well known lawyer, and 
was admitted to the Bar in 1881. Two years later he established 
an independent practice, and has ever since been actively engaged 
both in the civil and criminal practice, and has taken a high 
position as a trial lawyer. 

Mr. Moss has spent a large part of his time and energy in 
public matters, and though he has modestly refrained from pushing 
himself into public notice, it is well known that no man has done 
more meritorious work in raising the standard of the public ser- 
vice in New York City. 

In 1885, while unknown and uninfluential, in the course of his 
duty to several clients who were property owners in West Twenty- 
Seventh Street, then a famous stronghold of vice, he prosecuted 
Captain Williams before the Board of Police, and so began the 



132 




-C>i''2-<?^C^ 



FRANK MOSS. 133 

work that resulted ten years later in the overthrow of the old 
regime in the Police Department. This able and fearless prose- 
cution attracted the attention of Dr. Howard Crosby, then Presi- 
dent of the Society for the Prevention of Crime, who immediately 
tendered him the post of counsel to the Society, which he 
accepted, two years later becoming a Director and thus relinquish- 
ing all compensation for his work. 

After the death of Dr. Crosby, Mr. Moss became a leading 
spirit in that Society, and he and his fellow members of the 
executive committee planned and directed the movements which 
revealed the condition of some of our city departments, and led to 
the investigation by the Lexow Committee, and the overthrow of 
the entire Tammany administration in 1894. He was one of the 
counsel to the Lexow Committee, and his knowledge, experience, 
tenacity and ability contributed very largely to the success of the 
investigation. 

Upon the retirement of Theodore Roosevelt from the Presi- 
dency of the Police Department, Mayor Strong surprised Mr. 
Moss by asking him to take the vacant position. It was a diffi- 
cult and trying post at that time, because of the strife and 
hatred that existed in the Board, and the continuance of condi- 
tions that seemed to preclude harmonious action. The new 
appointee rose to the situation. He became the President of the 
Board, with firmness and dignity repressed the public exhibitions 
of dissension, carried forward the work of re-organization and 
turned over to the incoming administration a completed and 
re-organized police force, with a new Chief, and new Inspectors, 
Captains and Sergeants in the positions that had remained 
unfilled for two years before he became a member of the Board. 

Mr. Moss is a Republican, but outside of his work for good 
government has not been conspicuous in politics. He is a forci- 
ble and captivating public speaker, and is in constant demand as 
such. He is connected with many organizations and has a host 
of warm friends. He is connected with the Society for the Pre- 
vention of Crime, the City Vigilance League, Republican Club, 
Harlem Republican Club, Twilight Club, Bar Association, Law 



134 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 



Institute, Medico-Legal Society, Bible Society and various socie- 
ties of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He is Superintendent of 
the large Sunday-school of the Trinity M. E. Church. He is 
Professor of Medical Jurisprudence in the New York College and 
Hospital for Women, and, in 1896, was honored with the degree 
of Doctor of Laws, which was tendered to him by Taylor 
University, of Indiana. 

His first literary work is " The American Metropolis from 
Knickerbocker Days to the Present Time," in three volumes, 
which has lately appeared, and has been received by the press 
and the public with many evidences of appreciation. 

In 1883 he was married to Eva E., daughter of Eli F. Bruce, 
of New York City. They have two children, Birdie J., and 
Arthur B. 




n 

' i/'i r 





[OPEFUL signs for the future greatness of the 
Republic are not wanting when the young men 
of high position and sterling integrity — men who 
crave no reward beyond that bestowed by a satis- 
fied conscience — are taking so active a part not alone in social 
and business life but in the political and economic worlds. 
Partisan preferment is not needed to put such men in promi- 
nence, political positions are not necessary to keep them in the 
public eye; their shouldering of the people's burdens, quiet and 
unostentatious though it be, wins them the unsought applause 
of those they serve. Such a citizen is William D. Murphy, who, 
although a comparatively young man, besides taking a particu- 
larly active part in politics and in social life, has won an enviable 
reputation as a financier and as an independent operator in Wall 
Street. 

Wii.i.iAM Dennistoun Murphy was born on the 4th day of 
January, 1859, in the City of New York. He is the .son of Wil- 
liam D. Murphy and Ann Letitia, daughter of Joseph Goodliff, 
of Utica, New York. Mr. Murphy is the great-grandson of John 
Murphy, a native of the North of Ireland, who came to America 
as a Sergeant in the British Army, in 1761, and saw service in 
Canada during the French and Indian War. In 1767 he was hon- 
orably discharged from the service and, in the same year, became 
a resident of New York City, where his descendants have since 
resided. Mr. Murphy's oldest line of American ancestry is traced 
through the family of his father's mother, Lydia Cornish, who was 
the daughter of Benjamin Cornish, of Trains Meadows, Long 
Island, and a direct descendant of Thomas Cornish, one of the 



135 



136 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

earliest English settlers in the New Netherlands, where he became 
one of the founders of Newtown, Long Island, in 1650. The 
father of the subject of this biography was a Republican from 
the days of Fremont, a staunch abolitionist and well known patri- 
otic speaker during the Civil War period. 

Mr. Murphy was educated in New York City at the Anthon 
Grammar School and at Dolbear's Commercial College, and after 
leaving these institutions, for a number of years, he devoted him- 
self to recreation in travel and the study of art and literature. 
He is an enthusiastic amateur photographer and has taken his 
camera with him over 30,000 miles' travel in the United States 
and Europe, securing a varied collection of scenic wonders of 
the world. He has given much time and energy to building up 
the photographic fraternity in the city, and was President of the 
New York Camera Club, and was instrumental in consolidating 
this organization with the Society of Amateur Photographers 
under the title of the Camera Club of New York, of which 
organization he was twice elected President. Under his guidance 
the club has greatly increased its membership and has established 
a fine new club-house. 

Mr. Murphy has, by invitation, delivered many lectures on 
art subjects before prominent clubs and social organizations in 
New York and Brooklyn. 

He became interested in Republican politics early in the 
eighties, at the time of the anti-machine movement in the 
Twenty-first Assembly District, when the young men overthrew 
the organization and established the reform conditions which 
have since prevailed. He has been identified with the Republican 
organization in various capacities, occupying the position of First 
Vice-President at the time of the re-organization under the Com- 
mittee of Thirty, but has invariably refused to accept political 
nominations or appointments. He was one of the organizers of 
the Federal Club, in 1887, and an active worker, having served 
as Chairman of its Board of Governors, Vice-President, and Chair- 
man of its Committee on Consolidation when, in 1891, the club 
united with the Republican Club of the City of New York, in 



WILLIAM D. MURPHY. 137 

which latter organization, too, he has taken great interest and has 
served on many of its most important committees, and as Secre- 
tary, Treasurer and Chairman of the committee having in charge 
its annual Lincoln dinners. Besides the positions previously enu- 
merated, Mr. Murphy was, in 1892 and 1893, First Vice-President 
of the Enrolled Republicans of the Twenty-First Assembly Dis- 
trict, a member of the Republican County Committee in 18S8, 
1889 and 1 89 1, is on the First Panel of the Sheriff's Jury, and 
has been a Delegate to many county and State conventions. 

Since leaving school Mr. Murphy has not been engaged in 
active business, but has devoted his time to real estate matters 
and Wall Street interests, in which latter field he is well known 
as a successful operator. He was one of the original members of 
the Real Estate Exchange and Auction Rooms, Limited, which 
was organized in 1884, and has served upon its committees on 
Legislation, Taxation and Assessment. 

Mr. Murphy is a life member of the St. Nicholas Society of 
the City of New York, a member of the Republican Club of the 
City of New York, President of the Camera Club, of New York, 
a member of the Baptist Social Union of New York, of which 
he is now (1898) President, the New York Historical Society 
and of the American Institute of Civics. 

On the 17th day of January, 1881, in Philadelphia, he was 
married to Miss Rosalie Hart, daughter of James H. Hart. 
They have one son, William Deacon Murphy. In both the 
political and social worlds Mr. Murphy is widely known as a 
general organizer and committee man, and has been peculiarly 
successful in arranging banquets. He is not only an able after- 
dinner speaker but is also a most pleasing raconteur, whose 
humorous and dialect stories have done much to make successful 
many a dinner. 






T is not often that as young a man as is William M. 
— I K. Olcott attains such prominence, municipally and 
4, nationally, as he has done. Still less frequent is it 
that so young a man so carries himself that after a 
most bitter struggle of parties against parties and 
factions against factions he retains the same position in the eyes 
of his fellow citizens that he occupied before the fight. As 
Alderman at a time when the Board of Alderman was not a 
popular body; as District Attorney at a time when the District 
Attorney's office needed and received a most thorough cleaning 
out ; as a prominent possibility for the nomination as the Repub- 
lican candidate for Mayor when the Republican Party was in a 
most trying position, he was before the public most conspicuously. 
Fortunately for him, he had the ability to do the right thing 
at the right time and the result is that he is to-day a power in 
the municipal and political life of New York. 

William M. K. Olcott is a New Yorker through and 
through. He was born in No. iii West Thirteenth Street on 
August 27, 1862. His grandfather was the Rev. John Knox 
who for many years was pastor of the Collegiate Dutch Church 
of New York. His great-grandfather was John M. Mason, for 
many years a prominent clergyman of New York and Provost of 
Columbia College. His paternal ancestors are the Connecticut 
Olcotts who settled in Harvard in the Seventeenth Century. 

Mr. Olcott was educated in Grammar School No. 35, and 
was graduated from the College of the City of New York in 
1 88 1. He won the degree of A. B.; that of A. M. a few years 
later, and in 1883, in the Law School of Columbia College, he 



138 



W. M. K. OLCOTT. 1 39 

won the degree of LL.B. and was admitted to the Bar imme- 
diately afterward. 

With his brother, J. Van Vechten Olcott, he began the 
practice of law in No. 4 Warren Street. It was not long before 
he took an active part in politics, and soon he won a name as a 
shrewd and honest leader of men. In 1893 the Republican Party 
made him its candidate for Judge of the City Court, and he 
made a campaign which, despite the fact that the political com- 
plications of that year caused his defeat, convinced Republicans 
that he was one of the best men that they could put forward. In 
1894 he was elected to the Board of Aldermen and became the 
acknowledged leader of the Republican members. As Alderman 
his position made him particularly conspicuous because he served 
as Chairman of the Finance Committee, thus sitting as a member 
of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment. After his term as 
Alderman was over he began the work of strengthening his 
district, a work in which he succeeded remarkably well. In the 
political campaign that followed the session of the Lexow Commit- 
tee, he was particularly active, and he presided over the Repub- 
lican convention which nominated William L. Strong for Mayor. 

In December, 1896, Governor Levi P. Morton appointed him 
District Attorney, a position which had become vacant through 
the death of Colonel John R. Fellows. At the time, there was, 
probably, no public position in the City of New York more difficult 
to fill. As everybody knew what the condition of the office was, 
so everybody knew that great influences were at work to prevent 
reform. But the famous pigeon holes were cleaned out, and the 
cruel overcrowding of trial prisons became a thing of the past, 
the demands of justice being fulfilled by prompt prosecutions, 
and accused men men saved from long preliminary imprisonment 
before trial. In his first six months Mr. Olcott disposed of 1,147 
more cases than were disposed of in the corresponding six months 
of the year before, and the records show that he actually ran the 
office at a cost 50 per cent, less than it had cost in the previous 
year when so much less work was done. Where the expenses in 
1896 were $58,500 they were only $26,905 in 1897. 



I40 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

Despite the sharp and swift prosecution which made the office 
a terror to evildoers, it is probable that Mr. Olcott and his 
assistants, under the just and high minded system established by 
him, did more to reform repentant law breakers than had been 
done in many years before. He investigated many cases of 
excessive punishment and exerted himself personally on behalf of 
a number of young men who either had been sentenced on in- 
sufficient evidence or whose punishment was shown to be so 
excessive as to reduce their chances of reformation. 

In personal conduct of cases Mr. Olcott made excellent im- 
pressions, and in several his able presentation of the prosecution's 
side was marked with so much ability that they were commented 
on all over the country. 

When the great municipal campaign of 1897 for the control of 
of the greater City of New York began, Mr. Olcott's name soon was 
heard everywhere as a favorite of Republicans for the Mayoralty 
nomination. He did not permit this open expression of prefer- 
ence to sway him, but continued to pay all his attention to his 
duties as District Attorney, and he was one of General Tracy's 
most able and active supporters. 

In the end of 1897 Governor Black offered him the position 
of City Court Judge, made vacant by the resignation of Robert 
A. Van Wyck, who had been elected as Mayor. Mr. Olcott de- 
clined the position at first, but at last decided to take it. 

Judge Olcott lives in No. 58 West Eighty-fourth Street, in 
the Twenty-first Assembly District, and is a member of the Repub- 
lican Club, the West Side Republican Club and the Bar Asso- 
ciation. 










The Rembrandt EnqCPhila 



[^^.\y^A^ 





NE of the most distinguished families in the history 
of Virginia is that of Page. The American pio- 
neer was John Page, son 
'((")' I^edfont, near Feltham, Middlesex County, Eng- 



neer was John Page, son of P'rancis Page, of 



land, who belonged to a branch of the family that 
had for its arms : or ; a fesse dancette between three martlets, 
or and azure ; a bordure of the last. John Page was born in 
Bedfont, England, in 1627 ; was a prosperous merchant in the 
mother country, and in Virginia became one of the most inllu- 
ential members of the colony, being a member of the Royal 
Colonial Council. He died in 1692. Matthew Page, (1659-1703) 
son of John Page, was a wealthy planter ; married Mary Mann ; 
was an original member of the Board of Trustees of William 
and Mary College, and a member of the Royal Council under 
Queen Anne. In the third generation Mann Page (1691-1730) 
was, next to Lord Fairfax, the largest landowner in Virginia, 
holding at one time over seventy thousand acres in several coun- 
ties. John Page, (i 720-1 780) second son of Mann Page, was a 
member of the Colonial Council in 1776. After his father's 
death he was the head of the North End branch of the family. 
His wife was Jane Byrd, daughter of Colonel William E. Byrd, 
of Westover, on James River. Eleven children of John Page 
survived their parents. Major Carter Page, the fourth son (1758- 
1825) left William and Mary College, in 1776, to join the Conti- 
nental Army and became major and aid-de-cami) to General 
Lafayette. He married Mary Cary, daughter of Colonel Archi- 
bald Cary, and Mary Randolph, his wife. Colonel Cary was a 
descendant of Colonel Miles Cary, of the Royal Navy, and his 



141 



142 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

wife was in the sixth generation from Pocahontas and John Rolfe. 
Dr. Mann Page, (i 791-1850) third surviving son of Major Carter 
Page, was educated at Hampden-Sidney College, and graduated 
from the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania, 
Philadelphia, in 1S13. He married Jane Frances Walker, de- 
scended from the Nelsons of Yorktown, Virginia, and from Colo- 
nel John Washington, the ancestor of Gen. George Washington. 

Richard Channing Moore Page was born at Keswick, Albe- 
marle County, Virginia, January 21, 1841. He was the youngest 
child of Dr. Mann and Jane Francis (Walker) Page. He was edu- 
cated at the University of Virginia, entering the academic depart- 
ment of that institution in October, i860. The following January 
he joined the military company of students, called the Southern 
Guard. He remained at college until the close of the session, 
graduating in mathematics and Latin and distinguishing himself 
in Greek. He then entered the Confederate Army as a private 
in Pendleton's battery, under the command of General Joseph E. 
Johnston. In October, 1861, he was promoted to be Gun-Sergeant 
and transferred to the Morris Artillery and, in April, 1862, was 
brevetted Captain of Artillery and served as such in the campaigns 
against McClellan around Richmond and Antietam; also in the 
battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Mine 
Run. He was severely wounded at Gettysburg, and in the spring 
of 1864 was promoted to be Major of Artillery. In October of 
the same year he was made Chief of Artillery for the Department 
of Southwestern Virginia and East Tennessee on the staff of Gen- 
eral John C. Breckinridge, where he remained until the close of 
the war. In February, 1864, Captain Page was captured by the 
Federals during Dahlgren's raid at Frederick's Hall, Louisa County, 
Virginia, but he managed to escape and rejoin his command in a 
short time. 

After the close of the war, in 1866, he returned to the Uni- 
versity of Virginia and studied medicine, graduating in one ses- 
sion, in June, 1867. In August following he removed to New 
York City, and matriculated in the Medical Department of the 
University of the City of New York, graduating the succeeding 



R. C. M. PAGE. 143 

March. In April he entered the competitive examination for 
Bellevue Hospital, secured first prize, and was admitted on the 
staff of that institution, servinj^ the regular term as House Phy- 
sician. He was appointed District Physician, a political position, 
but after a short time resiorned, and entered the Woman's Hos- 
pital as Assistant. In 1871 Dr. Page began to practice on his 
own account, and has resided in New York ever since. 

In 1874 he was married to Mrs. Elizabeth Fitch Winslow, of 
Westport, Connecticut, widow of Hon. Richard Henry Winslow, 
who founded the bank of Winslow, Lanier & Company, in New 
York City. 

In 1 886 Dr. Page was appointed Professor of Diseases of the 
Chest and General Medicine in the New York Polj'clinic, a posi- 
tion he held until his death. He was also Vice-President of 
the New York Academy of Medicine, and a member of the 
New York Pathological Society, the New York State Medical 
Society, and other important medical associations. Upon him 
was conferred the honor, in the summer of 1888, of an appointment 
as Honorary Vice-President of the Paris Congress for the Study 
of Tuberculosis. Dr. Page was the author of a number of im- 
portant medical works, among them being a "Chart of Physical 
Signs," etc., a " Handbook of Physical Diagnosis," and " The 
Practice of Medicine." 

Dr. Page also wrote a carefully prepared genealogy of the 
Page family in Virginia, including the Nelson, Pendleton, Walker 
and Randolph families. He was the author, too, of some notable 
pamphlets, one of the most important being on " Metastatic 
Parotitis," a subject which attracted world-wide attention in the 
case of President Garfield. Other pamphlets, perhaps not less 
able, treated of " Txphoid Fever," "Lead-poisoning," " Bright's 
Disease of the Kidneys," etc. 

Dr. Page was a member of the New York Historical Society, 
the Virginia Historical Society, the New York South(;rn Society, 
as well as of the Confederate Veteran Camp of New York. He 
died, in Philadelphia, on June 19, 1898, after an illness of but a 
few days. 





rf,OHN EDWARD PARSONS was born in New 
York City on the 24th day of October, 1829. He 
IVi is the son of Edward Lamb Parsons and Matilda, 
iM daughter of Ebenezer Clark, of Wallineford, Con- 
necticut. His father was a native of England, 
the family having lived in Lancashire at the time of his birth, 
although for many generations they had resided at Cubbington 
and in the adjoining village of Stoneleigh, in Warwickshire. 
Edward L. Parsons came to America when a young man and 
soon engaged in business in New York. In June, 1839, he was 
drowned off the coast of Cheshire in the wreck of the packet ship 
" Pennsylvania " while on his way home from a voyage to 
Europe. 

John E. Parsons received his early education in the board- 
ing school of Samuel U. Berrian, at Rye, Westchester County, 
New York, in 1844 entering the New York University, of which 
Theodore Frelinghuysen was then Chancellor. He was graduated 
in 1848, when but eighteen years of age. He became a member 
of the Council of this University in 1865, and has remained 
upon the Board ever since. 

In the fall of 1849 ^^- Parsons entered the office of James 
W. Gerard, the distinguished member of the New York Bar and, 
three years later, was admitted to practice. January i, 1854, he 
opened an office and. May i, 1854, formed a partnership with 
Lorenzo B. Shepard, who, in July of the same year, became Dis- 
trict Attorney of New York, by appointment of Governor Horatio 
Seymour. Mr. Parsons was appointed his assistant and held the 
position until the close of the year. With that exception he has 



144 



I h- E 



4A 





(7X-^-<^rt><^^ 



JOHN E. PARSONS. 145 

never held public office. In May, 1857, (Mr. Shepard havin*^ 
died in September, 1856,) Mr. Parsons became associated with 
Albon P. Man, under tiie firm style of Man & Parsons. This 
partnership continued until 1884. In 1890 he formed the firm of 
Parsons, Shepard & Ogden, during the intervening period having 
had no partner. 

Mr. Parsons has been long recognized as a leader of the 
New York Bar. From the beginning his practice has been im- 
portant, embracing many departments of the law. Th(> interest- 
ing cases with which he has been connected include Dunham vs. 
Williams, involving the title to disused roads laid out in the parts 
of the State settled by the Dutch ; Story vs. the Elevated Rail- 
road companies, in which, after years of unsuccessful litigation, 
the Court of Appeals sustained the liability of the companies to 
abutting owners; the Merrill will case, the Purr will case, the 
Hammersly will case, the Tracy will case, at Buffalo; the Fayer- 
weather will case and the Jacob Sharp case. He was counsel for 
the Committee of the New York Senate to declare vacant the 
seat of William M. Tweed ; participated as counsel in the inves- 
tigation by the committee of the Assembly into frauds in Kings 
County; was counsel before the committee of the Assembly in 
the case against Henry W. Genet, participating in the trial of 
Genet, and has been engaged in many other public cases. He 
has been counsel, since its organization, of the American Sugar 
Trust and took part in the various litigations and Legislative and 
Congressional proceedings which followed the formation of the 
organization. 

He was an original member of the City Bar Association, 
having taken an active part in the proceedings preliminary to its 
organization. He submitted the draft for the original constitu- 
tion of the association, which were amended by the late Judge 
Rapallo, and were adopted. He took part in the reform move- 
ment which preceded the proceedings against the Judges at the 
time of the crusade against Tweed; was selected by the Bar 
Association as one of the counsel to take the initiatory proceed- 
ings before the Judiciary Committee of the Assembly of which 

1-19 



146 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

Samuel J. Tilden and David B. Hill were members, and was 
retained by the managers in the impeachment of Judge Barnard, 
as one of their counsel participating in his trial. He also took 
part in the trial of Judge McCunn and in the proceedings 
against Judge Cardozo until his enforced resignation. 

Much of Mr. Parsons' time has been given to benevolent and 
philanthropic work. He participated in the organization of the 
New York Cancer Hospital and has been its President from the 
beginning. He is the President of the Woman's Hospital of the 
City of New York ; is a Director of the Executive Conimittee of 
the New York City Mission and Tract Society; the Board of 
Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church and the American 
Tract Society; was President of the New York Bible Society, is 
a member of the Board of the American Bible Society, an origi- 
nal member of the Board of Trustees of Cooper Union, being 
associated upon that Board with Peter Cooper, his son, Edward 
Cooper, and his son-in-law, Abram S. Hewitt, together with 
Daniel F. Tieman and the late Wilson G. Hunt. 

Mr. Parsons has a country residence, an estate at Rye, New 
York, long held in his family. In 1875 ^^ also established a 
country residence at Lenox, Massachusetts, and has continued to 
make his summer home at that estate, being deeply interested in 
farming and the occupation which comes from the care of country 
property. 

He is a Governor of the Lenox Club, a member of the 
Vestry of the Episcopal Church, of Lenox, and a member in New 
York of the Century, University, Players', Metropolitan, Riding, 
City and Turf Clubs, and of the Board of Trustees and the 
Board of Elders of the Brick Presbyterian Church. He has 
been much interested in poor children in the City of New York, 
for twenty years having been at the head of a large mission 
school and maintaining at his own expense a fresh-air home at 
Curtisville, near his residence at Lenox, where one hundred 
children at a time are taken care of during the heated season. 





>^ SERVICE in public positions that dates almost 
from the days of Iiis boyhood, a natural saj^'acity 
and a quick grasp and keen insight into questions 
of national moment have won for United States 
Senator Thomas C. Piatt, of Tioga County, high 
rank as a statesman and pre-eminence as a party manager. 
Trained in the mercantile and financial worlds, in which his jjrog- 
ress is scarcely second to the rank he has attained as a political 
leader, and having filled with distinguished ability a number of 
positions of honor and trust in the service of his State and of 
the political party in which he is so conspicuous a figure, his 
elevation to the halls of national legislation found him peculiarly 
fitted for the duties of the position, and, while his first term in 
the Senate was terminated by an error that few men would have 
ever lived down, after almost a score of years he has again en- 
tered the Senate Chamber as the almost unanimous choice of the 
Republicans of the Empire State. But during the years which 
followed his resignation, in 1881, he set to work steadily to regain 
his lost prestige, and although opponents have arisen and his re- 
election to the Senate of the United States was bitterly fought, 
his course as a Senator has been such as to win him the appre- 
ciative applause of even his personal anil political opponents. 

Thomas Collier Platt was born in Owego, Tioga County, 
New York, on the 15th day of July, 1833. His father, William 
Platt, was a lawjer in the town who strove to give to his son 
ample educational opportunities. The latter was but sixteen years 
of age when he was qualified to enter Yale College, from whicli 
the threatened failure of his health, before the completion of his 



147 



148 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

course, compelled his withdrawal. This college, however, conferred 
upon him the honorary degree of Master of Arts in 1876, as a 
recognition of his conspicuous position in public life. To regain 
his health he embarked for a time in the active life of a lumber- 
man and merchant. He then went to Ohio, where he was the 
cashier in a bank while yet a boy, but finally drifted into the 
drug business in Massillon, Ohio, later returning to his home in 
Owego, where he became, while yet very young, President of a 
bank and a Director in the Southern Central Railway. 

He received his first political appointment in 1859, as County 
Clerk of Tioga, and, in 1870, he declined the Congressional nom- 
ination in his district, being absorbed in the cares of business. 
Two years later, however, he consented to accept the nomination, 
and, after a stirring campaign, was elected and served two terms 
in the National House of Representatives. 

On January 18, 1881, he was chosen United States Senator 
to succeed Francis Kernan, but resigned on the i6th day of May 
in the same year with his colleague, Roscoe Conkling, on account 
of a disagreement with President Garfield regarding New York 
appointments which had been made by the Executive against the 
protests of the Senators. He returned home, was a candidate 
for re-election, and, after one of the most exciting canvasses in 
the history of the State, was defeated. From that day he was 
apparently out of politics and was spoken of and almost univer- 
sally regarded as a political suicide ; but in the fall of 1882 he 
started in again, although tremendously handicapped. It was 
thought that he wanted to get back into politics to punish the 
men who had defeated him in his fight for vindication and re- 
election to the Senate, but instead of fighting he set to work to 
encourage young men to enter the political arena. The new 
blood was his, and it was on this foundation that he built up the 
party and rehabilitated himself. He had been a Delegate to the 
National conventions in 1876 and 1880 and was elected a Delegate 
in 1884. In the ensuing campaign he was chosen to lead by his 
party's managers, and it has been said that had his advice that 
year been followed, and had the Presidential candidate sought a 



THOMAS C. PI.ATT. 149 

reconciliation with Roscoe Conkling-, the State would have been 
carried for Blaine and the Presidency retained by the Republican 
Party. 

Mr. Piatt held the position of Quarantine Commissioner until 
January 14, 18S8, when he was removed by proceedings which were 
instituted on account of his residing in Tioga County and not in 
New York City. 

His position in the Republican party has for years been one 
of peculiar leadership, which culminated in his re-election, in 1897, 
to succeed David B. Hill in the United States Senate, which he 
entered with renewed and even increased prestige after almost a 
score of years. 

Mr. Piatt became Secretary and a Director of the United 
States Express Company in 1879, and since 1880 has been its 
President and active and managing head. Among other corpora- 
tions with which he is at present connected may be enumerated 
his posts as President and Director of the Addison and Penn- 
sylvania Railway Company, Director of the American District 
Telegraph Company, of the Cataract General Electric Comi)any, 
of the Erie Canal Traction Company, of the New York and 
New Jersey Ice Lines, of the Safety Car Ht^iting and Lighting 
Company and of the Toledo and Ohio Central Railway Com. 
pany, all of which demand a share of his attention, although the 
affairs of the United States Express Company demand almost 
all the time Mr. Piatt can spare from the duties that fall upon 
him as a political leader and because of his place in the council 
halls of the nation. 




4^^'' I M. WARLEY PLATZEK. fe '1 



*■ Jl ; I 1| // 




L^ NO city of the Union does the legal profession con- 
tain so many men of talent as New York, the com- 
% mercial centre of the hemisphere. This is, in a 
great measure, due to the advent of men of force 
and ability, who, leaving sections where opportunities 
for advancement were few, have settled where an almost unlim- 
ited field is afforded for men of character and intelligence. This, 
while making rewards doubly great, has vastly increased the diffi- 
culties and lessened the chances for success, and he whom energy 
and application have enabled to rise to a foremost place in a pro- 
fession that is teeming with intellectual giants is all the more 
worthy of esteem. That the qualities that go to make up a suc- 
cessful attorney are present in a marked degree in M. Warley 
Platzek, the review of his successes amply demonstrates. 

M. Warley Platzek was born in North Carolina, in 1854. 
His parentage is Teutonic, his father, Isaac Platzek. and his mother, 
Sarah Platzek, both being natives of Germany. The father died 
and was buried in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1S60, but Mr. 
Platzek's mother is still living. The early education of the son 
was acquired at the district school of Fayetteville, in his native 
State, at the High School in Richmond, Virginia, and later under 
the private tuition of Professor Withero, of South Carolina. 
Before his twenty-first birthday Mr. Platzek was chosen Clerk of 
the Common Council of Marion Court House. South Carolina, 
and, immediately upon attaining his majority, he was appointed 
Assessor and Treasurer for the district. The only firm into whose 
employ he entered in South Carolina was that of Warley & 
McKerall. While residing in this State Mr. Platzek's ambitious 

150 



rcS.-.il:l 



M. WARI.EV Pl.ATZEK. 151 

energy led to his study of the law, in which he made such ad- 
vancement that he was soon admitted to practice. After a few 
months, however, he perc(;ived that the North presented enlarged 
opportunities, and he came to the metropolis and entered the Law 
Department of the University of the City of New York as a stu- 
dent, graduating, in 1876, as class orator and with the degree of 
Bachelor of Laws. 

For a year after coming here, Mr. Platzek served in tlie 
offices of the late Judge Joseph 1*. Joachimson, hut having been 
admitted to practice in this State, in June, 1876, he has since 
made a specialty of commercial and insolvency law, as well as the 
trial of jury cases. lie is especially known as a trial huv\er, 
and his brilliant conduct in many important litigations has gained 
for him not only an enviable reputation, but has secured an exten- 
sive clientele, he being regularly retained liy a number of the most 
prominent of New York's lawyers as trial counsel. By methods 
strictly honorable and professional, and by the exercise of an inhe- 
rent integrity so necessary to success in this most exacting of 
professions, he has won the respect of the Bench and the esteem 
of his professional colleagues. 

Endowed by nature with talents of a high order, which he 
has supplemented by earnest and intelligent study and wide travel, 
Mr. Platzek has won in the literary world many encomiums both 
as author and lecturer. His travels have reached every habited 
part of the globe, with the exception of Egypt, China and Japan, 
and he has gone beyond the North Cape as far as Spitzenberg. 
Of late years, however, the press of his practice has precluded his 
presence on the platform. 

While Mr. Platzek was always an ardent and enthusiastic 
Democrat, he has never consented to accept pidjlic offices beyond 
a Delegateship to the Constitutional Convention, held at Albany 
in 1894, in which he represented the Tenth Senatorial Dis- 
trict. Here, as elsewhere, his grasp of the problems at issue 
was quickly recognized, and his position as a member of the Con- 
vention was one thoroughly in accord with his high professional 
standing. For twelve consecutive years Mr. Platzek was a member 



152 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

of the Examining Committee of the Law Department of the New 
York University, and hence the President of the Constitutional 
Convention designated him for service on the educational as well 
as on several other of the most important committees of the body. 
For four terms he was President of the Young Men's Hebrew 
Association of the city, for two years President and is still a Direc- 
tor of the Progress Club. He was one of the founders of the 
Educational Alliance of the City of New York; is now President 
of the Supreme Lodge of the United States of the Order Kesher 
Shel Barzel, an endowment society which has expended over two 
and one-half millions of dollars in charity. Mr. Platzek was also 
Chairman of the Executive Committee of the American society 
for the amelioration of the condition of Russian refugees during 
the recent persecutions, and was Chairman of the Central Com- 
mittee of all the charities during those troublous times for the 
oppressed exiles. His prominence in political circles is better 
illustrated by his position as one of the Governors of the Demo- 
cratic Club of the City of New York. 

Mr. Platzek is a member of the Harmonic, Progress, Crite- 
rion, Democratic, Wa Way Yanda, Mohican and Reform clubs, of 
the State Bar Association, New York Catholic Protectory, Hebrew 
Orphan Asylum, Mount Sinai Hospital, St. John's Guild, Home 
for Aged and Infirm Hebrews, Educational Alliance, Society for 
the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Hebrew Free Schools, 
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Hebrew Sheltering 
and Guardian Society, Montefiore Home, the Young Men's Hebrew 
Association, the United Hebrew Charities, the Jewish Publication 
Society, American Jewish Historical Society, the Metropolitan 
Museum of Art, Aguilar Free Library and many other of the 
most prominent benevolent, educational and literary organizations 
in the city. 





-^<& 







HE laws relating- to corporations have in late years 
received the attention of some of the most eminent 
legal lights of the New York Bar. Of necessity, 
the man who can build up a successful practice 
among corporations whose interests involve millions 
must possess peculiar attainments and the highest erudition. On 
the other hand, the large amount of money frequently involved 
in their suits, and the thoroughness with which their cases must 
be investigated, makes such a practice decidedly lucrative. Among 
the most successful attorneys in this high branch of the profes- 
sion in New York is Elihu Root, the subject of this biograi)hy, 
who for years has been recognized as having a thorough knowl- 
edge of this department of legal jurisprudence, and a practice ex- 
tending throughout the State. His manifest abilities and active 
and conscientious work have made him eminent in his profession, 
respected in the community, and prominent in the political world. 
Elihu Root was born in Clinton, Oneida County, New 
York, on the 15th day of February, 1845, <i"d is the worthy des- 
cendant of an old and prominent New England family, his father, 
Oren Root, having been the Professor of Mathematics at Hamil- 
ton College for the thirty-six years between 1849 'i''"-' 1885. 
Elihu Root completed a course at and was graduated from this 
institution in 1864, afterwards studying law at Hamilton College 
and at the University Law School. His studies completed and 
having been admitted to the Bar, he began the practice of his 
profession in New York City in 1867, in a few years becoming 
prominent both as a lawyer and as a leader of the reform ele- 
ment of the Republican Party. 



■53 



154 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

Devoting himself closely to his chosen work, he rapidly- 
acquired an extensive practice, principally in behalf of important 
corporations, and has been counsel in many of the most famous 
litigations in the annals of the State. Indeed, few lawyers of 
to-day have a more remarkable record of success in the cases 
entrusted to their care. In the famous contest growing out of the 
will of A. T. Stewart, Mr. Root was leading counsel for Judge 
Hilton, and he successfully defended the suit of Branagh vs. 
Smith, in which he disposed of the claim of the alleged Irish 
heirs against the Stewart estate. 

He was the leading counsel in the Hoyt will case, as he was 
also in the famous Fayerweather contest. He appeared in the 
Broadway surface railroad litigation, the Sugar Trust contest, the 
suit (growing out of the Bedell forgeries) of Shipman, Barlow, 
Laroque and Choate vs. the Bank of the State of New York, 
besides defending the proceedings before Mayor Grant for the 
removal of Dock Commissioners Matthews and Post. In the 
aqueduct litigation (O'Brien vs. the Mayor of the City of New 
York) as counsel for the city he won against the opposing coun- 
sel, Joseph H. Choate, and succeeded in saving to the city 
several millions of dollars. He successfully resisted the removal 
of Charles A. Dana to Washington when the editor was under 
indictment in the courts of the District of Columbia for publica- 
tion of an alleged libel in his paper, the New York Su)i. In one 
of the most sensational cases of modern times he defended 
Robert Ray Hamilton from the machinations of the notorious 
Eva Mann. 

In 1879 Mr. Root polled a large vote as the Republican 
candidate for Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. From 1883 
to 1885, by appointment from Chester A. Arthur, President of 
the United States, he served with distinction as United States 
District Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and 
tried and convicted James D. Fish, President of the Marine Bank, 
for acts connected with the celebrated Grant and Ward frauds. 
He resigned upon the advent of the Democratic administration. 

For many years Mr. Root represented the Twenty-first As- 



ELIHU ROOT. 155 

sembly District on the executive committee of the Republican 
County Committee of New York, and, in 18S6, was Chairman of 
the County Committee. In 1893 and 1894 he was one of the 
most active members of the Committee of Thirty in onranizing 
a revolt against the employment of machine methods in the Re- 
publican Party in New York County. Me was also one of the 
Delegates-at-Largc to the Constitutional Convention of 1894 and 
while Joseph H. Choate officiated as President, Mr. Root was 
Chairman of the Judiciary Committee and leader on the floor of 
the Republican majority. 

Mr. Root's legal practice is characterized by exhaustive work 
in the preparation of his cases and a keen intellectuality which 
(piickly penetrates to the marrow of the subject under investiga- 
tion. He is also a ready speaker, but, with the same mental 
characteristic, appeals, with forceful logic, to the understanding 
rather than merely to the more ephemeral emotions. 

He is universally recognized as one of the most powerful 
speakers in the Republican Party, and has been active in all its 
campaigns for many years. Especially notable was his analysis 
and exposure of municipal corruption in the famous address which 
he delivered at Cooper Union during the Presidential campaign 
in 1892. Preceding the Parkhurst agitation, this arraignment as- 
tonished all by the boldness of the assault, while its anticipation 
of the Lexow exposures seems now almost prophetic. 

Mr. Root has held or is holding the offices of President of 
the New England Society, Vice-President of the Union League 
Club; and at the election in January, 1895, was made President 
of the Republican Club of the City of New York for the yc-ar 
succeeding. He is also a member of the Century, Metropolitan, 
University and Players' clubs, and a number of others of the 
city's best known social organizations. 





Jiliiiiiiiiiiiii iMiSiS M 

HENRY W. SCOTT. 






ffflllPBMPliil.lllJr. 





HIS eminent advocate, distinguished as a judge, 
jurist and author, is a self-made man in the tru- 
est and most Hteral sense of the term. He is 
the son of Caleb Longest and Charlotte Temple- 
ton Scott, and is a native of Sangamon County, 
Illinois. His mother was Charlotte King Templeton, and was 
born in Wayne County, Ohio, on October 9, 1827. She is a 
woman of great strength of character, possesses a prodigious 
mind and a most astonishing memory. His father was born on 
the i8th day of December, 1821, in Sangamon County, Illinois. 
He was an intimate friend of Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. 
Douelas and Richard Yates, and a college mate of the latter at 
the University at Jacksonville. His younger brother, John 
Winfield Scott, married Miss Martha Yates, a sister of Senator 
Yates. Caleb L. Scott was a man of broad, philosophic mind, 
and while possessing the greatest tenacity of purpose, yielded 
to the California gold excitement of 1849-50, and was led to 
abandon college and a promising future in professional life. 

This branch of the Scott family traces its ancestry back 
to the early centuries of Scotland. The family progenitor in 
this country settled in Pennsylvania about 1736, and later 
branches settled in Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and North 
Carolina. Judge Scott comes from lineal Revolutionary stock 
on both sides of the house. His maternal great-grandfather, 
Nathaniel Templeton, a volunteer from Washington County, 
Pennsylvania, was killed at the battle of Sandusky Plains, June 
II, 1782, in the fight with the Indians, at which time Colonel 



156 



HF.NRV \V. SCOTT. 157 

Crawford, his commander, was burned at the stake after being 
betrayed and led into ambush by Simon Gerty. 

This sturdy ancestry transmitted to Judge Scott through the 
unerring laws of heredity the faculties and strength of character 
that have supported him in life. He finished his education and 
was admitted to the Bar at Lyons, Kansas, at the age of 
eighteen years, and following his admission he was taken into 
partnership with his law preceptor. This association continued 
until his appointment by President Cleveland, in February, 1888, 
to the position of Register of the United States Land Office at 
Larned, Kansas, which he held until replaced by a Republican 
soon after the inauguration of President Harrison. In the fall 
of 1889 he was the Democratic candidate for Judge of the Si.\- 
teenth Judicial District of Kansas. He was cndonscd by the 
combined opposition to Judge S. W. Vandivert, the regular Re- 
publican candidate, and one of the ablest and most popular 
judges and lawyers of that State. The campaign was particu- 
larly bitter and hotly contested and is recorded as one of the 
most memorable jutlicial elections ever held in the; State. 
The result showed that Judge Scott had been defeated by a 
majority of eight votes. Following this defeat his friends rallied 
and tendered him their united support for the Democratic nomi- 
nation for Congress in the Seventh Congressional District; but 
the fact that he was ineligible on account of age made it neces- 
sary for him to advi.se them that it would not be proper to 
allow his name to go before the Convention. 

Upon the death of General Bragg, in 1891, which created a 
vacancy in the Democratic membership of the Interstate Com- 
merce Commission, Judge Scott's name was presented to Presi- 
dent Harrison for the vacancy by Hon. John Sherman and the 
late Senator John E. Kenna, of West Virginia ; and among the 
distinguished men of both parties who joined them in the re- 
quest, may be named Thomas M. Cooley, Lyman Trumbull, 
Henry M. Teller, Shelby M. CuUom, William P. bryc, Daniel 
Dougherty, A. H. Garland, Richard Coke, John i\I. Thurston 
and John Randolph Tucker. But for the persistency of Presi- 



158 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

dent Harrison in selecting a Democrat from the extreme South, 
Judge Scott's friends assured him that he would have received 
the appointment. 

In 1893 President Cleveland again honored him by appoint- 
ment without solicitation to the position of United States Dis- 
trict Judge for the Territory of Oklahoma, and his career in 
that region, in suppressing lawlessness and crime, and in dealing 
with the many complicated legal questions growing out of the 
anomalous conditions there, is a part of his life, that, if space 
permitted, it would be interesting to dwell upon. Judge Scott's 
desire, however, to permanently abandon political and official life, 
and resume the active practice of the law, actuated him, in 1896, 
to resign his office and accept a law partnership in the city of 
New York. While the arrangement was consummated in March 
of that year, his resignation did not take effect until the follow- 
ing September. Since his residence here his success has been 
the subject of much comment. He is constantly being retained 
in the most celebrated cases, and his trial work calls him into 
many States of the Union. He is a man of tireless industry 
and application, and his capacity for great labor is a source of 
astonishment to those who know him. 

Judge Scott is well and favorably known throughout the 
country as a writer on legal subjects, and an exhaustive article 
written by him, at the request of the editor, on the subject of 
" Uniform Marriage and Divorce Laws," published in the New 
York Herald, in November, 1896, created a profound sensation, 
not only in this country, but abroad. 

It is said, no doubt with perfect truth, that Judge Scott has 
the acquaintance, confidence and esteem of more of America's 
distinguished men than any man of his age in the Union. His 
name has frequently been mentioned in connection wth the Vice- 
Presidency in 1900 by his friends and the press in different parts 
of the country ; but, having determined to continue his profes- 
sional work, he gives no encouragement to anything whatever in 
the line of political achievement. 



\./ 





E possibilities of the legal profession for individual 
distinction and the honors it offers to men of bright 
minds are among the reasons why this special 
field contains so many endowed with imcommon 
gifts. Among the many lawyers who add lustre to 
the fraternity in this country, this State is probably more largely 
represented than any other. New York City is particularly notable 
in this respect, and during the past half century has contributed 
to the profession some of its most successful members. Among 
them is John Sabine Smith, wlio, although largely interested in 
public affairs, has won a most important position in his profes- 
sion. 

John SabixI': Smith was born in Randolph, Vermont, April 
24, 1843, and is the son of Dr. John Spooner and Catherine, 
daughter of the Rev. James Sabine, an Englishman and an Epis- 
copal clergyman. His wife was the daughter of Isaac Danford, a 
noted English barrister. On his father's side Mr. .Smith traces 
his ancestry to one of the earliest and most prominent of New 
England families and his father, for more than half a century, 
was the leading physician in Randolph. His grandfather, Samuel 
Smith, was the first white child born in Windsor, Vermont, ami 
was married to Lucy Woods, daughter of a captain in the Revo- 
lutionary Army. Captain Steele Smith, the great-grandfather of 
the subject of this review, was the founder of the tcnvn of 
Windsor, having led a band of pioneers thither from i'"armington, 
Connecticut. The first American ancestor of whom they have a 
record was Captain James Parker, of Groton, Massachusetts, who 
had command of the garrison at that place in 1676. 



'59 



l6o REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

Mr. Smith attended the Orange County Grammar School, at 
the age of sixteen entering Trinity College. His support was 
largely dependent upon what he could earn by teaching, but he 
graduated at the head of his class when but twenty. The next 
four years of his life were spent as an instructor in a select school 
at Troy, New York, his spare moments being utilized in study- 
ing law under Judges George Gould and Gardiner Stowe. He 
was admitted to the Bar in iS68 at Poughkeepsie, and has grad- 
ually risen until he is now recognized as one of the foremost 
lawyers in the State. On coming to New York City Mr. Smith 
accepted a position as assistant in the office of William E. Curtis, 
late Chief Justice of the Superior Court. Soon after, however, 
he opened an office on his own account, and by his strict devo- 
tion to the interests of his clients, laid the foundation for his 
present extensive and lucrative practice. 

As a political leader and an astute organizer he ranks high 
in the Republican Party. It was in 1879 that Mr. Smith first 
became a member of the Young Men's Republican Club, which 
later became the Republican Club of the City of New York, and 
he was largely instrumental in the organization of the Republican 
League of the United States. In 1888 Mr. Smith was not only 
a member of the Executive Committee of the New York State 
League but was Chairman of its sub-executive committee, and 
was practically the head of the State organization during the 
campaign of that year. Since this time there has been hardly a 
progressive movement in the Republican organization but has 
had his unqualified support. As originator of the propaganda to 
secure a Republican Mayor for the County of New York ; as 
Chairman of the Republican Club Committee on Municipal Elec- 
tions ; as one of the strongest advocates who brought about the 
nomination and election of William L. Strong as Mayor; as Chair- 
man of the "Campaign Committee of Fifty" in the Republican 
Club of the Fassett campaign ; as presiding officer over many of 
the most important political meetings in the city; as the nominee 
of his party for Surrogate of New York City in 1892, in which 
contest he ran ahead of both National and County Republican 



JOHN SAHINE SMITH. i6i 

tickets ; as President of the Republican County Committee in 
1893; as President of the RepubHcan Ckib of the City of New 
York; as a member of the famous "Committee of Thirty," as a 
member of the Republican State Committee for several years, as 
Chairman of the Committee on Speakers and Meetings of the 
Republican County Committee during the campaigns of iSg6- 
1897, and as principal author of the Primary Election Law, he 
has had a career of remarkable political activity, although he has 
never held public office. 

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, in 1897, ap- 
pointed Mr. Smith one of three Commissioners to determine 
whether a system of rapid transit should be constructed by the 
City of New York and operated at a cost of $35,000,000. After 
a heated contest, conducted by eminent counsel, the Commission- 
ers presented an exhaustive report, which was largely the produc- 
tion of Mr. Smith, deciding that the road ought to be built. 
This report was confirmed by the Court and Mr. Smith received 
the commendation of the great body of citizens. 

In the Republican State Convention of 1893, his name was 
presented for nomination as Judge of the Court of Appeals, and 
he received the support of the large delegation from the city. 

Mr. Smith has been President of the New York Society of 
Medical Jurisprudence. He is a Trustee of Trinity College, and 
for several years was President of its New York Alumni Associa- 
tion. He is a member of Grace Church, and was one of the 
founders and is the Treasurer of the East-Side House. He is a 
member of the University, Lawyers', Republican, Church, Patria 
and Quill clubs, the Phi Beta Kappa Alumni, the New England 
Society, the Society of the Colonial Wars, the National, State 
and City Bar associations, Vice-President of the Institute of Civics, 
a Director of the Society for Promoting Chun h Schools and Col- 
leges, and Counsel of St. Mark's Hospital, and is actively inter- 
ested in many social, philanthropic and political organizations. 

Mr. Smith is a prominent Thirty-second Degree member of 
the Masonic fraternity, a Knight Templar and a member of Mecca 
Temple of the Shrine. 





'E\V YORK has few more prominent men in tlie 
financial world or more active as operators in 
Wall Street than Edward B. Talcott, of whose 
busy life much more might be said than could 
possibly be incorporated in a brief sketch of this 
character. It is by the energetic efforts of such men as the sub- 
ject of this review that the State's greatest city has risen to its 
present place as the financial centre of the Western Hemisphere, 
and is to-day in a fair way to soon be the greatest city in the 
entire world. For many years Mr. Talcott has been one of the 
best known and most highly esteemed brokers on the floor of 
the Stock Exchange, where he has conceived and guided to a 
successful termination some of the most important deals in the 
history of the Street. 

Edward Baker Talcott, the fourth son of Frederick L. 
Talcott, was born in New York on the 21st day of January, 1858. 
Warwickshire was the original home of the Talcott family, though 
the first recorded ancestor was John Talcott, of Colchester, Essex. 
His son resided in Bramtree, England, and was a Justice of the 
Peace. From the latter the American branch of the family 
sprung, through his son, John Talcott, who settled in Boston in 
1632 but removed to Hartford in 1636, where he became a magis- 
trate. Lieut.-Col. John Talcott, his son, was born in England, 
and came to this country with his father. In 1650 he was an 
Ensign, a Captain in 1660, a Deputy in 1654 and Treasurer of 
the colony between the years 1660 and 1676, in King Philij^'s 
War commanding the troops with the rank of Major and after- 
wards of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was one of the patentees named 



162 






o 







EDWARD H. TALCOTT. 1 63 

in the Connecticut Charter and, in 1650, married Helena Wake- 
man, daughter of John Wakeman, Treasurer of Connecticut, dyint^ 
in 16S8. His son, Hezekiah, was born in 1685, married Jemima 
Parsons, was one of the original proprietors of the town of Dur- 
ham, and died in 1764. In the next two generations, the ances- 
tors of the subject of this sketch were John Talcott, (born in 
1 712 and died in 1765) and his wife, Sarah Parsons, and David 
Talcott, (i 744-1 786) and his wife, Anne Lyman. Noah Talcott, 
the son of the latter couple, was born in Durham, Connecticut, 
in 1768, and died in New York in 1840, having been a prominent 
merchant in the city during the early years of the present century. 
From 1798 to 1809 he was a partner of one of the present Ellis 
brothers, and after continuing alone in business for the next six 
years, he took his brother, David, into the firm, which was then 
styled N. & D. Talcott. They dissolved partnership after eight 
years, but he continued in business, either alone, with other asso- 
ciates, or with his sons until the end of his life. His wife, to 
whom he was married by Bishop Moore in Trinity Church, in 
1803, was Eliza Woods, of Oxford, England, who was born in 
1787 and who died in 1866. Noah Talcott was one of the origi- 
nal members of the New England Society. Frederick Lyman 
Talcott, his son, was born in 1813. Graduating from Columbia 
College in 1832, he and Daniel W. Talcott, his brother, were 
taken into business with their father, the firm becoming Noah 
Talcott & Son, and continuing under that style until 1858, 
when Frederick L. retired and with his two sons, Frederick L., 
Jr., and August B. Talcott, established the banking house of 
Talcott & Sons. P'rederick L. Talcott was known as the "Cotton 
King" from his operations in the cotton market, and was Presi- 
dent of the organization of merchants from which grew the 
present Cotton Exchange. In 1842 he married Harriet Newell 
Burnham. Their children were : Frederick L. Talcott, who mar- 
ried Mary Picard ; August Belmont Talcott, married to Therese 
Polhemus ; James Carleton Talcott, who married Laura Belknap ; 
Mary Alice, wife of Charles F. Palmeter ; Harriett Elliott, who 
married James R. Harrison ; Edward Baker Talcott and Florence 
Louise Talcott. 



164 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 



Edward B. Talcott began business, in 1874, with Talcott & 
Sons, after which he passed four years with the firm of Charles 
F. Hardy & Company, for whom he made a number of success- 
ful trips abroad and was eventually offered an interest in the 
business. This he refused and, returning to Wall Street, entered 
the firm of Talcott & Sons in 1880, becoming a member of the 
Stock Exchange. He remained connected with this house for 
three years and then became a most successful independent 
operator. In January, 1897, he entered the firm of Bell & Com- 
pany. Mr. Talcott represents the house, which is one of the 
leaders of the Street, on the Exchange. 

Between 1890 and 1894 he was identified with baseball affairs, 
and, on returning from a European trip, in 1892, found the New 
York Baseball Club in a bankrupt condition. He was made 
Managing Director, with absolute control, and by the end of the 
season 1894 had paid off its debt and placed the club on a pay- 
ing basis, then selling his interests to the present owners. 

In 1879 ^f- Talcott married Sara T. Roberson, daughter of 
W. H. Roberson, In 1880 a son was born to them. He died in 
1886. Mr. Talcott is a member of the Colonial, Manhattan, 
New York Athletic, Atlantic Yacht and Democratic clubs. Al- 
though he has long been an active and prominent member of the 
Democracy and has a high place in his party's councils, Mr. 
Talcott has never permitted his name to be presented for nomi- 
nation for any political position and has invariably refused all the 
public appointments that have been tendered him. 




'^'WrTii'^'sv^''^ 



^M^ GEO. K. THOMPSON, f^;^ 






^^J( 




EORGE KRAMER THOMPSON, who was born 
October 15, 1859, '" Dubuque, Iowa, is a descend- 
ant of one of the oldest families in this country, 
his ancestry in the United States beins; traceable 
in a direct line to the earliest days of the colony. 
Thomas Minor, the first American progenitor, was born in Eng- 
land, in 1608, and came to this country in 1630, here marrying 
Frances Palmer. From his second son, Thomas, through Clement, 
to William to Stephen Minor, of Winchester, Virginia, and throuo-h 
his son, John, who was the father of Abia, whose daughter, Sophia, 
married John H. Thompson, the subject of this review traces his 
family. John Minor, of Winchester, Virginia, settled in Washino-- 
ton County, Pennsylvania, in the portion which aftcrvvards became 
Greene County, prior to the Rev^olutionary struggle. Hanna's 
" History of Greene County" claims him as one of a small party 
that first occupied and cultivated the soil of the region. When 
Greene County was constituted, in 1796, Mr. Minor was at once 
appointed one of the associate judges of the county courts and 
held the office until his death. His descendants have since been 
among the most prominent citizens of southern Pennsylvania and 
the family has contributed many of the most illustrious citizens to 
the Keystone Commonwealth as their relatives have done in their 
Virginia home. 

At the age of fifteen the subject of this review entered Chat- 
tock Military Academy, about this time making up his mind to 
prepare himself for the architectural profession, pursuing such 
studies as would be most valuable in his chosen walk in life. In 
1876 he entered Franklin and Marshall Academy, at Lancaster, 

■65 



1 66 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

Pennsylvania, and there followed lines of research necessary in the 
architectural profession. In 1879 ^^i"- Thompson came to New 
York and entered the office of Frederick C. Withers, Esq., on the 
corner of Rector Street and Broadway, on which site Mr. Thomp- 
son's firm is now erecting the Empire Building, one of the most 
magnificent office structures In the city. He remained with Mr. 
Withers until 1S82, as a student, during which time much impor- 
tant work was put under his supervision. 

In the fall of 1882 he accepted a salaried position in the 
office of Messrs. Kimball & Wisedell, remaining with them for about 
a year ; after which, for a short time, he was again connected 
with Mr. Withers, besides attending to some work on his own 
account. 

In 1S83 Mr. Thompson formed a partnership with C. P. H. 
Gilbert, with offices at 40 Broadway, the union lasting about 
eighteen months, when our subject bought out the interests of 
his partner and continued the business alone, a portion of the 
time with offices in New York and a branch establisment in St. 
Louis. During this period Mr. Thompson had a large and varied 
practice in both places. In 1890 he carried out some work for the 
Manhattan Life Insurance Company, and through the acquaintance 
thus formed with the officers of that institution was invited to 
compete for their proposed new building, at 66 Broadway. The 
partnership of Kimball & Thompson was formed in 1892, the 
first work undertaken by them being the Manhattan Life Insur- 
ance Building, which was the pioneer building of its class and 
construction. After the designs for the Manhattan Life Building 
had been settled upon, the problem of sustaining its immense weight 
on a small area of ground which comprised the site was found to 
be a serious matter, and the architects' investigations soon showed 
the necessity of creating a stronger foundation than piles, concrete 
or grillage would sustain. Then it occurred to him that if bed- 
rock could be reached by some process such as the pneumatic 
caisson work, which had hitherto only been used for bridge work, 
which would sustain the pressure of the surrounding soil, the 
problem would be solved. Accordingly, he called in a firm who 



GEO. K. THOMPSON. 167 

did this class of work and empowered thcin to perfect the system, 
which was then used for the first time in building operations on 
dry land. The idea was thoroughly original with Mr. Thompson, 
and was first employed in the foundation of the Manhattan Life 
Building, but has since been used on many other large structures 
which have been erected not only by this firm but by other 
architects. The Manhattan Building com[)leted, Kimball & 
Thompson erected stores for B. Altman & Company, at 
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets and Sixth Avenue, followed 
by extensive alterations and additions to the Standard Block for 
the Standard Oil Company. The Empire Building, for the O. B. 
Potter Estate, which they are just completing at Rector Street 
and Broadway, like the Manhattan Life Building, is one that 
reflects the greatest credit on its designers, for these two build- 
ings are most chaste and magnificent piles, unsurpassed by any 
similar structures in the world. Mr. Thompson has also erected 
warehouse and office buildings for ex-Postmaster C. W. Dayton, 
residences for Francis Wilson and Augustus Thomas, and a great 
number of country houses throughout the United States. 

In addition to his prominent position among the greatest 
architects of the nation, Mr. Thompson is well known in the 
social life of the metropolis, being a member of the Lotus Club, 
Knollwood Country Club, Republican Club of the City of New 
York, Twilight Club, National Sculptors' Society, American Art 
Society, Royal Arcanum, Huguenot Lodge of Free and Accepted 
Masons, Mount Vernon Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, and 
Bethlehem Commandery, Knights Templar. 

Mr. Thompson was married, June 4, 1886, at Dubu([ue, 
Iowa, to Miss Harriet H. Henion, who is a member of one of 
Pennsylvania's oldest families, having, like Mr. Tliomi^son's 
parents, established their residence in Iowa in the early fifties. 





HE great Empire State has been especially distin- 
guished in its contributions to the nation of men 
whose services have been enlisted in the conduct 
of the national government ; not alone in the high- 
I'iidl? ■'"-1 est office of the land, but in the Cabinet, in the 
Supreme Court, in the Diplomatic Service, in the Army, in the 
Navy — in fact in every branch of Federal affairs demanding trained 
judgment, high intelligence and great executive ability. Of this 
long roll of prominent men, which New York has furnished to 
the nation, and whose work has stamped its impression upon 
every line of executive endeavor, none is more conspicuous than 
that of Benjamin Franklin Tracy, who has specially distinguished 
himself as Secretary of the Navy in the Cabinet of ex-President 
Harrison. 

Benjamin Franklin Tracy is a native of New York, and 
was born in Owego on the 2d of April, 1830. His father had 
been a pioneer in the southern tier of counties, and was a man of 
marked integrity, progressiveness and enterprise. His son early 
showed an inclination and fondness for study, and received his 
education principally at the Owego Academy. As he possessed a 
logical mind and a clear analytical intellect, he selected the law as 
the profession to follow. When quite a young man he entered a 
law office in his own town, and quickly mastered the dry details 
of study, and was admitted to the Bar in May, 1851. He imme- 
diately achieved distinction in his own home, and was pitted 
against men who afterward became distinguished, but with whom 
he always was able to hold his own in either arguments or cross- 
examination. In 1853 he was elected District Attorney for Tioga 



168 



ripr :-:<!b 



BENJAMIN F. TRACY. I 69 

County. He was the Whig candidate at that time, and the County 
was a strong Democratic bailiwick. He was honored with a 
re-election in 1856, securing a majority over the Democratic can- 
didate, Gilbert C. Walker, who afterward became Governor of Vir- 
ginia. Although on opposite sides, the two candidates were friends, 
and soon after this election formed a law partnership. When the 
thunders of war first broke upon this country in 1861, General 
Tracy took an active and prominent part in the exciting politics 
of that jieriod, and filled several important offices in the State 
Legislature. In the spring of 1S62, under appointment from the 
Governor of New York, he was actively enlisted in the work of 
recruiting soldiers for the front, and he raised two regiments of 
State troops, the One Hundred and Ninth and the One Hundred 
and Thirty-seventh. As he himself desired to see active service, 
he became the Colonel of the former. This regiment first went 
to Baltimore, and then to Washington, D. C, where it remained 
on duty until the spring of 1864. When the general advance 
under Grant was madc!, the regiment joined tlie Ninth Army 
Corps of the Army of the Potomac, and took a brave part in the 
battle of the Wilderness. In this tremendous conflict. Colonel 
Tracy behaved with daring bravery and valiant heroism, and when 
the battle closed he fell exhausted and was carried from the 
field, but refused to be sent to the hospital. He continued to 
lead his regiment during the three days' conflict in Spottsylvania. 
Here he utterly broke down and was forced to surrender his 
command to the Lieutenant-Colonel. He then came North to 
recuperate his health, but in the following September was made 
Colonel of the One Hundred and Twenty-seventh United States 
Colored troops, and was soon after assigned to the command of 
the military post at Elmira, New York. This was a prison camp 
and the drafting rendezvous in Western New York, and at one 
time he had as high as ten thousand prisoners under his charge. 
In March, 1865, Colonel Tracy was brevetted Brigadier-General 
of Volunteers for gallant and meritorious services during the War 
and in June, 1865, was honorably discharged on tendering his 
resignation. Colonel Tracy went to New York City, and entered 



17© REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

the law firm of Benedict, Burr & Benedict. In 1866 he was 
elected District Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, a 
post which he accepted and filled with high credit. While acting 
as District Attorney, he became the author of an internal revenue 
bill which more than trebled the revenue of the United States at 
that trying period when our national credit was being established 
in the face of a huge war debt. In 1873 ^''^ resigned and again 
entered upon general practice. In December, 1881, the Governor 
of New York appointed him Associate Justice of the State Court 
of Appeals, the appointment being made to fill a vacancy. This 
high position he occupied for two years, and then returned to the 
practice of the law with Mr. William De Witt and his son, F. F. 
Tracy. The law office of the three was located in Brooklyn. 
While thus following his profession, he was, on March 5, 1889, 
called to the Cabinet by President Harrison, as Secretary of the 
Navy. His nomination was most favorably received, and the 
appointment was confirmed on the very day it was sent to the 
Senate. Secretary Tracy entered very zealously upon the duties 
of his office, and at once mapped out plans for the rehabilitation 
of the Navy and increase of our fighting forces. His work was 
such as to be a guide to other secretaries. In April, 1891, his 
report showed that his department was then engaged in the con- 
struction of twenty-five vessels, in addition to eleven completed 
and put in service since the spring of 1889; that the Washington 
Gun Foundry for holding artillery had been brought to the proper 
state of perfection, and that under the supervision of the depart- 
ment a reserve naval militia was in process of active formation. 

General Tracy is a member of the Loyal Legion, and a 
prominent member of the Grand Army of the Republic. He is 
now actively engaged in the practice of the law, and is one of the 
most distinguished and successful members of the Bar of the 
State. In 1S97 his name was conspicuously mentioned as a suit- 
able candidate for the mayoralty of Greater New York, and much 
against his own inclination he was induced to become the candi- 
date of the Republican Party. 





-Tt^O'^^^^^'P^ 



tfir,.;Y,r:iikhnC, 





CHAUNCEY S. TRUAX. (^"te 








SEj EEP student not only into the intricacies of the i)ro- 
fession to which he has devoted the larger portion 
of his life, but into oriental languages and ancient 
history, Chauncey Shaffer Truax has had a pecu- 
liarly successful career. During the years of his 
early manhood exceptional opportunities came to him for scholarly 
advancement, and his success during the twenty years he has 
practiced his profession in New York conclusively proves that no 
opportunity has failed his grasp. 

Chauncey Shaffer Truax was born in Durhamville, New 
York, on the iith day of March, 1854. He is the son of Henry 
Philip Trua.x and his wife, Sarah Ann Shaffer, whose brother was 
the late Chauncey Shaffer, one of the most able and eloquent 
lawyers in the City of New York. 

Chauncey S. Truax received his early education in the public 
schools of his native section and at Oneida Seminary, in 1875, 
graduating from Hamilton College with high honors and being 
awarded the prize for oratory on commencement day. In 1877, 
having chosen the Bar as the field for his efforts, he was gradu- 
ated from Columbia College Law School, and about the same time 
received the appointment of instructor in international and com- 
mercial law at Robert College, Constantinople, being recommended 
f(jr that position by the President and faculty of Hamilton College. 
In this institution, sometimes styled the "Oxford of the Orient," 
designed to offer eastern students the same educational ailvantages 
provided by the universities of Western Europe and America, and 
from which have been graduated the men who now control the 
destiny of Bulgaria, Mr. Truax was a Professor and at tlic same 



171 



172 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

time continued his own studies in Roman law and in ancient his- 
tory in connection with explorations on the plains of Troy and 
other classic sites. Unwilling to abandon the practice of law, he 
resigned, however, and returned to New York in October, 1878. 
Here in his native State he at once commenced the practice of 
his profession and met with great success. In 1890 he organized 
the firm of Truax & Crandall, his brother becoming a member 
of this firm during the year 1895, between his retirement from 
the Bench of the Superior Court and his subsequent election to 
a seat in the Supreme Court. 

In 18S4 Mr. Truax was counsel in the litigation growing out 
of the Williams Bridge reservoir as well as in the litigations, in 
1 888, in connection with the construction of the new aqueduct. 
He also distinguished himself as counsel for the defense in the 
famous Jacob-Sire suit, the Langley divorce cases, the Adirondack 
Railroad litigation, and the more recently notable case of Thomp- 
son vs. Blauvelt, which was tried in Rockland County. In the 
last mentioned action, which was a suit brought for fifty thousand 
dollars' damages, the court denied the plaintiff's novel claim that 
a cause of action for the alleged alienation of his wife's affections 
could be mentioned against her present husband. Mr. Truax is 
also counsel for many of the largest and most prominent corpo- 
rations and banking institutions in the State, having devoted a 
large portion of his time to this special field. 

Mr. Truax has always retained his fondness for the study of 
the classical languages and, in 1886, founded a Greek scholarship 
at Hamilton College. He has often taken an active interest in 
Democratic politics, and he spoke in the States of New York 
and New Jersey for Tilden in the memorable campaign of 1876. 
In 1 88 1 he was a Delegate to the Democratic State Convention 
and, in 188S, was a member of the Committee on Platform in the 
convention which nominated David B. Hill for Governor. In 
1894 he was a member of the New York State Constitutional 
Convention, as was also his brother. This was the only instance 
where such a distinguished honor was simultaneously conferred 
upon two brothers. Despite his activity in political affairs and 



CHAUNCKY M. TRUAX. 173 

the deep interest he has always manifested in seeing that the 
government of city, State and nation was properly administered, 
Mr. Truax has craved no reward for his services and has never 
permitted his name to go before the people as a candidate for 
any elective office, preferring to devote himself to the profession 
in which he has, by his undivided effort not less than his qualities 
of mind, been able to achieve signal distinction. 

Chauncey S. Trua.x is a member of the Bar Association of 
the City of New York, and served many years on its Committee 
on Amendments of the Laws. He has also been long identified 
with and a prominent member of the Manhattan Club and Holland 
and Harlem societies, being one of the founders of the latter. 
He is President of the New York Alumni Association of Hamil- 
ton College. 

In 1886, Mr. Truax was married to Alice M., the daughter of 
R. K. Hawley, of Cleveland, Ohio. The)- have three children. 



>=^i 






^^^HE progressive West has sent to the Empire State 
one of her most distinguished jurists in the person 
of the subject of this review, who, after winning a 
reputation as a lawyer and judge second to none 
in his native section, has sought a broader and 
better field for the continued practice of the profession in which 
he had already gained so many laurels in his former home, 
judge Vandivert, in coming to historic Manhattan, after many 
years, at last sought the city which his forefathers helped to 
found and in which he bids fair to be rewarded by as many suc- 
cesses as had attended his career in the West. 

Samuel W. Vandivert was born on a farm in Harrison 
County, Missouri, on the 14th day of January, 1857. He is the 
son of Robert H. and Agnes H. Vandivert, both of whom were 
natives of the State of Ohio. The earliest members of the family 
of whom there is any trace in history were natives of Flanders, 
their descendants later emigrating to Holland, where the name 
was spelled Van Der Voort. Our subject's name, therefore, 
should really be spelled thus, but his ancestors, two or three 
generations ago, Anglacised it into its present form. The mem- 
bers of the family who first crossed the broad Atlantic settled on 
or near Manhattan Island in the year 1646. Robert H. Vandi- 
vert, the father of the subject of this sketch, was a physician by 
profession, an abolitionist and a soldier in the Union Army in a 
Missouri regiment during the Civil War. He was long prominent 
in public life in his adopted State, and as an active Republican 
served in the Senate of Missouri from 1869 until 1875. 

The early education of S. W. Vandivert was received In 



174 




.^L^ ?^^92 



S. W. VANDIVERT. 175 

the country schools of Missouri. Thorough educational institu- 
tions were scarce on the frontier at that clay, but after attending 
a number of the best ones accessible he began the study of law 
when eighteen years of age, graduating in the Law Department 
of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, in 1877, the spring 
succeeding his twentieth birthda)'. 

After leaving college, and as a means of securing a little 
ready money, he taught school for a year and then, in the spring 
of 1878, opened a law office in Bethany, the county seat of his 
native county, remaining in practice there with a considerable 
degree of success until the autumn of 1884. At that time the 
western half of Kansas was rapidly settling and a llood of emi- 
gration was pouring into the new frontier country. Ambitious 
and enterprising, our subject joined the throng and settled at 
Kinsley, Kansas, establishing a weekly newspaper there and one 
at Coldwater, Kansas, for five years conducting both of these 
journals and attending to his legal practice as well. After set- 
tling in the State he confined his work to the professions of 
journalism and law, in the latter of which he soon acquired a 
large and varied practice, no small proportion of which was in 
the criminal courts. 

During this time Mr. Vandivert was active in political life 
and held a high place in the councils of the Republican Party, 
taking a particularly prominent part in all the political campaigns 
through which his party passed. At the November election, in 
1S89, he was elected District Judge for the Sixteenth Judicial 
District, composed of Edwards, Hodgeman, Garfield and Pawnee 
counties. This court has the same jurisdiction which is allotted 
to the Supreme Court of New York, being a court of general 
criminal and civil jurisdiction and unlimited by the amount in 
controversy. His course on the Bench was so eminently satisfac- 
tory to the i)eople of his section that he was re-elected to the 
same office in 1893, and held the position about eight years, and 
until he left the State a few months before the expiration of his 
term. Judge Vandivert was a candidate for United States Sena- 
tor before the people of Kansas in 1896 with a llattering prospect 



176 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

of election in case the Republican Party carried the State. The 
Legislature, however, was carried by the Populists, and the seat 
was therefore filled by a member of that party. 

Judge Vandivert came to New York in October, 1897, and 
entered the legal field as a general practitioner in connection 
with Hon. S. M. Gardenhire, a former Kansan and able lawyer 
who had preceded Mr. Vandivert in the city for some years. 

Judge Vandivert was married, in 1879, ^o Miss Eva Crossan, of 
Bethany, Missouri, They have three children, a daughter, Louise, 
aged fifteen, and two sons, William W., thirteen years old, and 
Roderick McLean, aged eleven. 

He is a Royal Arch Mason and a Knight of Pythias, still 
retaining his membership in these orders in Kansas. Among his 
fellow members of the Bar of New York he is highly esteemed 
and in the social cirles of the city he and his family have made 
many friends. 

Judge Vandivert's life had been a very energetic and active 
one and whatsoever he has attained since early manhood has 
been solely the result of his own energies and abilities. Thoroughly 
versed in the intricacies of the law, a deep student and devoted 
to whatever interests may be confided to his care, there would 
seem to be no reason why, sharp as the competition is in New 
York's legal circles, he should not equal or even surpass his suc- 
cesses in other fields. 





~* * >; f 



tA 



V 




-^a 





O greater compliment coukl be paid to the personal 
worth or ability of a citizen of this Commonwealth 
than the tribute which came to Robert A. Van 
Wyck when he w^as selected as the first Mayor of 
Greater New York. To be elected at any time 
the executive head of the second city of the world would be a 
distinction that could scarcely come to an unworthy man, but to 
be the first one chosen, and the man upon whom has devolvt^d 
the arduous duty of practically re-organizing the whole city gov- 
ernment, is an especially great mark of the public esteem. While 
Mayor Van Wyck was upon the Bench it was remarked that his 
keen perception and the instinctive faculty he always had of at 
once sifting the grain of an argument from the chaff of verbiage 
with which it is too often accompanied led lawyers to submit 
their causes to his hands with confidence and with the knowledge 
that there would be fair play. His elevation to the chief magis- 
tracy of the consolidated city was but a just reward of the ear- 
nestness and energy which has characterized his conduct and forced 
him to the front, and his friends feel that his ability is deserving 
of and can hardly fail to receive, in the future, greater recogni- 
tion than has yet been accorded him. The Van Wycks were among 
the very earliest Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam, having taken 
a prominent part in local affairs almost from the first days of the 
settlement in the colony, and the subject of this sketch may be 
justly regarded as a worthy representative of his distinguished 
family. He has proven himself to be a lawyer of the highest 
ability as well as an efficient judge, and the excellence of his de- 
cisions is best evidenced by the fact that over ninety per cent, of 



^n 



178 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

his opinions, written in General Term, are to be found in the 
law reports. 

Robert Anderson Van Wvck was born In the old Van Wyck 
mansion in Lexington Avenue, New York City, in 1849, ^"^ '^ ^^^^ 
son of William Van Wyck and his wife, Lydia Anderson Maverick. 
His taste for the law may be said in a measure to have been 
inherited from his father, the late William Van Wyck, who was a 
prominent attorney and a conspicuous man of affairs in New York 
more than half a century ago. From his father he also inherited 
his Democratic politics, for William Van Wyck was, until his death, 
high in the councils of Tammany Hall and prominent in the polit- 
ical campaigns through which this historic institution has passed. 
He was at one time elected Alderman of the City of New York, 
and the Board of which he was a member recognized his ability 
by electing him to preside over its deliberations. Robert A. Van 
Wyck is a descendant on the paternal side in the seventh gen- 
eration from Cornelius Barents Van Wyck, who came to New 
Netherlands in 1650, from the town of Wyck, Holland, and was 
married, in 1660, at Flatbush, Kings County, New York, to Ann, 
the daughter of Rev. Johannes Theodorus Polhemus, the first 
Dutch Reformed minister in that County. All the American Van 
Wycks are descendants of Cornelius Barents Van Wyck, and are 
connected by intermarriage with many of the most notable fam- 
ilies throughout the State, including Van Rensselaer, Van Cort- 
landt, Beekman, Gardiner, Van Vechten, Livingston, Hamilton, 
Seymour and others. 

The subject of this biography left school when but a boy, 
determined to enter business life, and began his career in 1862, 
running errands for a mercantile establishment in this city. His 
fidelity attracted the attention of his employers and he was later 
made a clerk, in which capacity he served for five years, when 
his ambition led him to follow in the footsteps of so many of the 
distinguished members of his family, and he began his studies for 
the legal profession in one of the most celebrated institutions of 
the country, and was graduated at Columbia College Law School, 
in 1872, as the valedictorian and at the head of a class of one hun- 



ROBERT A. VAN WYCK. I 79 

tired and twenty-four. He was admitted to the Car anil practiced 
his profession until 1889. In that year he was elected a Judge 
of the City Court, and became Presiding Judge of the Court. 
In November, 1897, he was elected Mayor of the enlarged city 
at the first election held under the charter creating the Greater 
New York. It is certainly a notable fact that this honor should 
fall to the direct descendant of one of New Nelhcrland's 
founders. 

He is unmarried and a member of the Holland Society, of the 
St. Nicholas, Manhattan, Democratic clubs and a number of other 
of the most prominent social organizations in the city. The 
Mayor's brother, Augustus Van Wyck, of Brooklyn, also has had 
a distinguished career at the Bar, and some years ago was elected 
a Justice of the Supreme Court of New York in the Second, or 
Kings County, Judicial District. He is a member of the Hol- 
land Society. 

Since early manhood Mayor Van Wjck has displayed a 
steady independence of character balanced by a reflective mind 
that has been the keystone in the arch of his career. Indefatiga- 
ble in energy and tireless in effort, he has steadily kept before 
him the growing benefit of personal rights, and won the confi- 
dence of all with whom he has had dealings, realizing that thus 
only could he ever perfectly balance a successful life crowned 
with triumph. His rise has been in no sense a meteoric one, but 
a result of carefully laid plans, intelligently carried out. 






ALL STREET has no man within its limits who is 
more widely known or who has more personal and 
devoted friends and well-wishers than has S. V. 
White, of whose busy life we write. In sunshine 
or in storm, in prosperity or in adversity — for there 
have been times when the dark waters of ruin threatened to en- 
gulf him — he has ever retained the confidence of all with whom 
he came in contact and has, undaunted by threatening troubles, 
defeated defeat and raised victory from failure. 

Stephen V. White, who has for years been one of the most 
prominent figures in Brooklyn, and in New York, too, for that 
matter, was born in Chatham County, North Carolina, August i, 
1 83 1. On his father's side Mr. White is a descendant of a family 
of sturdy Quakers who had removed to the South from Pennsylvania 
at the close of the Revolutionary War; while his mother, Julia 
Brewer, was a member of one of the oldest and best known 
families of North Carolina. In consequence of the slavery agita- 
tion, which eventually came to a head in the Nat Turner insur- 
rection, the States of Virginia and North and South Carolina 
were thrown into ferment and Mr. White's father, Hiram White, 
because he refused to perform patrol duty against the blacks, was 
requested to leave the State, which he did soon after the birth 
of his son. Removing to Greene, now Jersey County, Illinois, 
he built a log hut and devoted himself to farming. 

It was in the frontier wilderness that the early years of 
Stephen V. White were passed. The first labor for which he 
received direct pay was in 1847, in trapping and hunting, the skins 
thus obtained being purchased by the American Fur Company. 



180 



S. V. WHITE. l8l 

In 1849 he was enabled through the assistance of an elder brother 
to enter the preparatory school of Knox College. Graduating 
from Knox in 1S54, for a time Mr. White taught school, after- 
wards going to St. Louis to become book-keeper in the wholesale 
boot and shoe house of Claflin, Allen & Stinde. 

In 1 85 5 Mr. White began the study of law, entering the 
law office of Brown & Kasson, the senior partner being B. Gratz 
Brown, who was the candidate for Vice-President of the United 
States on the Greeley ticket of 1872, the junior partner being 
Hon. John Kasson, since member of Congress from the Seventh 
Iowa District, and also United States Minister to Austria. 

In November, 1856, Mr. White was admitted to the Bar, 
and in the following month he located himself in Des Moines, 
Iowa, and commenced the practice of his profession. In 1857 
this place was made the capital of the State and the sessions 
of the Court of Appeals and of the Federal Courts were held 
there. Mr. White was a very successful lawyer from the start 
and made his mark in a number of important cases. In one of 
these, Gelpe vs. Dubuque, in the United States Court, he made 
a strenuous fight and won an important victory. It was a case 
that involved the constitutionality of certain municipal bonds that 
had been issued for railway construction. Retained by the appel- 
lant, Mr. White succeeded in having the case reversed, and as a 
result several millions which had been repudiated by the State 
were saved to investors. This case, which is reported in I-'irst 
Wallace, is the leading one on that question. 

Despite Mr, White's professional success, he decided to leave 
the law and go into business, and, in 1865, he formed the part- 
nership in banking in New York then known under the name of 
Marvin & White. Two years later Mr. Marvin retired and Mr. 
White continued alone until 1882, when the firm of S. V. White 
& Company was formed with Arthur Claflin and Franklin W. 
Hopkins. Mr. Claflin retired January i, 1886. Mr. White's mar- 
vellous success in Wall Street is too well known to need com- 
menting upon. He has been a member of the Stock Exchange 
for more than twenty years, and has ever been known as a fear- 



l82 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 



less operator engaged in dealings of a gigantic character, and 
always having the courage to follow his convictions and business 
judgment to the fullest limit. 

In 1 886 Mr. White was the Republican candidate for IVIember 
of Congress from the Third New York Congressional District, 
and was elected by one hundred and seventy-two votes over James 
D. Bell, the Democratic nominee. His Congressional career was 
marked by a fidelity to duty characteristic of the man. 

Mr. White for many years has been a pillar of Plymouth 
Church, having been its Treasurer for a long period. He was 
the first President of the American Astronomical Society, serving 
as such for five years, and owns the largest private telescope in 
the country. Mr. White is an accomplished classical and scienti- 
fic scholar and among his literary efforts is a translation of the 
" Dies Irx." He is deeply interested in charitable work, which 
he performs quietly and without ostentation. 





i!u(:)^iiiij!;^iii!iiiii!D^i'.,i' 



i^ 



WILLIAM C. WHITNEY. 



^ Lam ' TJN''"''^ j i^rtu T iaah-M-f^ 

:^/ Aliiiii^:r::i]lite;i:ii!ik'.:^3:Sii 








jlLLIAM COLLINS WHriNLY was Lorn al Con- 
way, l\Lassachusctts, July 5, 1S41, a descendant 
of the eit^hth generation from John Whitney, one 
of the leaders of the English Puritans who setllcil 
in Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1635. His an- 
cestors in the male line were, without exception, men of unusual 
strength of character and of prominence in the communities in 
which they lived. Among them were Brigadier-General Josiali 
Whitney, of Harvard, Masachusetts, who was a member of both 
the convention that prepared the constitution for Massachusetts 
and that which adopted the constitution of the United States. 
His father was Brigadier-General James Scollay Whitney who, 
1854, w'as appointed by President Pierce Superintendent of the 
Armory at Springfield, Massachussctts, and, in i860, became 
Collector of the Port of Boston, on nomination of President 
Buchanan. Upon his mother's side his ancestry goes back to 
William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth Colony. 

Mr. Whitney was educated at Williston Seminary, East llaiii])- 
ton, Massachusetts, at Yale College, where he was graduated in 

1863, and at Harvard University Law School, which he left in 

1864. Beginning practice in New York City, he was soon recog- 
nized as a fearless lawyer, whose devotion to his cli'^nts was 
indefatigable. His first appearance in public affairs took place in 
187 1, when he was active in organizing the Young Men's Demo- 
cratic Club of New York City. In 1872, he was made Inspector 
of Schools, and at the same time became a leader of the County 
Democracy division of the Democratic party. In 1875, '^^^ ^^''^^ 
appointed Corijoration Counsel for the City of New York. He 



■83 



l84 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF NEW YORK. 

resigned the office in 18S2, to attend to personal interests, and, 
March 5, 1885, was appointed Secretary of the Navy by President 
Cleveland, and proceeded vigorously with the construction of the 
new navy with which his name is hereafter to be inseparably linked. 
He did much in restoring to the United States the prestige as 
a navy power, and above all things making it independent of the 
rest of the world for supplies in case of war. When he became Sec- 
retary he found that neither armor, nor the forging for high-power 
guns, nor the rapid-firing guns constituting the secondary battery, 
could be produced on this side of the Atlantic. Resolutely de- 
clining to place any contracts abroad and stipulating for American 
products in every instance, there necessarily was a considerable 
delay in beginning the new ships; but, in 18S7, by embracing in 
one contract all the armor and gun steel authorized by the two 
previous Congresses, he induced the Bethlehem Iron Works to 
assume the expenditure for a new plant of $4,000,000 or $5,000,000 
and had the satisfaction of securing all that the government needed 
from a home institution — the largest and finest of the kind in the 
world — and of better quality than had ever before been produced 
anywhere. American citizens and shipbuilders were invited to 
submit designs and models for the new vessels ; construction by 
private parties was especially stimulated on the Pacific coast, and 
as a supplement to all this the navy yards at New York and 
Norfolk, Virginia, were also equipped for steel and iron ship- 
building of every type and size. When Mr. Whitney retired from 
office, in 1889, the vessels of the United States Navy designed 
and contracted for by him, then finished or in process of construc- 
tion, consisted of five monitors, double turreted, besides the dyna- 
mite cruiser " Vesuvius," and five unarmored steel and iron cruisers, 
the "Newark," "Charleston," "Baltimore," "Philadelphia" and 
"San Francisco;" in addition there were three, then unnamed, 
armored cruisers and four gunboats, two of the latter having been 
launched in 1888. He also contracted for a torpedo boat and 
purchased the " Stiletto." The vessels enumerated were exclusive 
of the steel and iron vessels of the old navy, so-called. The fol- 
lowing tribute was paid him by the late Senator Preston B. 



WILLIAM C. WHITNEY. 185 

Plumb, of Kansas, a political opponent, in a speech in tlie Senate 
on February 12, 1889: "I am glad to say in the closing hours of 
Mr. Whitney's administration that the affairs of his department 
have been well administered. They have not only been 
well administered in the sense that everything has been 
honestly and faithfully done, but there has been a stim- 
ulus given, so far as it could be done by executive direc- 
tion, to the production of the best types of ships and the 
highest form of manufacture, and, more than all that, to the 
encouragement of the inventive genius of our pt'ople and to 
the performance of all possible work, not in navy yards where they 
might be most surely made the instrument of political strength, 
but in private ship yards and manufactories, to the effect that we 
have got to-day enlisted in this good work of building the Amer- 
ican Navy not only the Navy Department backed by Congress, 
but we have got the keen competition of Amt-rican manufactories 
and the inventive genius of all our people, so that we may con- 
fidently expect not only the best results but great improvements 
each year. I am glad to say that during the past four years 
the Navy Department has been administered in a practical, level- 
headed, judicious wa\", and the result is such that I am prepared 
to believe and to say that within ten years we shall have the 
best navy in the world." 

Mr. Whitney was married, in 1869, to Flora Payne, daughter 
of Henry B. Payne, Senator from Ohio, and their home in Wash- 
ington, one of the finest in the Capital, was as great a centre of 
attraction as was their New York mansion. Mrs. Whitney died 
in 1892. In 1896 he contracted a second marriage, his bride 
being lidith S. (May) Randolph, daughter of the late Dr. William 
May, and widow of Capt. Arthur Randolph, of East Court, Wilt- 
shire, England. Their city house is on upper Fifth Avenue, New 
York City. In 1888 Yale conferred upon him the honorary 
degree of Doctor of Laws. 



